LINCOLN  DURING  THE  DEBATE  WITH  DOUGLAS. 

After  an  ambrotype  taken  by  C.  Jackson,  at  Pittsfield,  Illinois, 
October  1,  1858. 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

tTbe  Grue  Storp  of  a  <5reat  life 

:      ^ 

.* 

BY 
WILLIAM  H.   HERNDON  AND  JESSE  W.  WEIK 

WITH    AN    INTRODUCTION 
BY   HORACE  WHITE 

ILLUSTRATED 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES  " 

••*  voi;  n    •;  •*•»••  :°>  >  « ; 


NEW    YORK 

D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 
1909 


COPYRIGHT,  1888, 
BY  JESSE  W.  WEIK. 

COPYRIGHT,  1892, 
BY  D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY. 


T  THE, 

R/SS,  u.  a,  A.    ;/:  j  ; 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   I. 

PAGES 

A  glimpse  into  the  law-office. — How  Lincoln  kept  accounts 
and  divided  fees  with  his  partner. — Lincoln  in  the  argument 
of  a  case. — The  tribute  of  David  Davis. — Characteristics 
as  a  lawyer. — One  of  Lincoln's  briefs. — The  Wright  case. — 
Defending  the  ladies. — Reminiscences  of  the  circuit. — The 
suit  against  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad. — The  Manny  case. 
— First  meeting  with  Edwin  M.  Stanton. — Defence  of  Will 
iam  Armstrong. — Last  law-suit  in  Illinois. — The  dinner  at 
Arnold's  in  Chicago 1-29 

CHAPTER   II. 

Speech  before  the  Scott  Club.— A  talk  with  John  T.  Stu 
art. — Newspapers  and  political  literature. — Passage  of  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  bill. — The  signs  of  discontent. — The  arri 
val  of  Douglas  in  Chicago.— Speech  at  the  State  Fair.— The 
answer  of  Lincoln. — The  article  in  the  Conservative. — Lin 
coln's  escape  from  the  Abolitionists. — Following  up  Doug 
las. — Breach  of  agreement  by  Douglas. — The  contest  in 
the  Legislature  for  Senator. — Lincoln's  magnanimity. — 
Election  of  Trumbull. — Interview  with  the  Governor  of 
Illinois. — The  outrages  in  the  Territories. — Lincoln's  judi 
cious  counsel. — A  letter  to  Speed. — The  call  for  the  Bloom- 
ington  Convention. — Lincoln's  telegram. — Speech  at  the 
Convention. — The  ratification  at  Springfield. — The  cam 
paign  of  1856. — Demands  for  Lincoln. — The  letter  to  the 
Fillmore  men.  .  » 


225238 


iv  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  III. 

PAGES 

Growth  of  Lincoln's  reputation. — His  dejection. — Gree- 
ley's  letters. — Herndon's  mission  to  the  Eastern  states. — 
Interviews  with  Seward,  Douglas,  Greeley,  Beecher,  and 
others. — The  letter  from  Boston. — The  Springfield  conven 
tion. — Lincoln  nominated  Senator. — The  "  house-divided- 
against-itself"  speech. — Reading  it  to  his  friends. — Their 
comments  and  complaints. — Douglas's  first  speech  in 
Chicago. — The  joint  canvass. — Lincoln  and  Douglas  con 
trasted. — Lincoln  on  the  stump. — Positions  of  Lincoln  and 
Douglas. — Incidents  of  the  debate. — The  result. — More 
letters  from  Horace  Greeley. — How  Lincoln  accepted  his 
defeat. — A  specimen  of  his  oratory 59~$7 

CHAPTER   IV. 

Detailed  account  of  the  campaign  of  1858  by  Horace 
White. — Douglas's  imposing  entrance  into  Chicago. — His 
opening  speech. — Meetings  at  Beardstown,  Havana,  and 
Lewiston. — Description  of  the  two  champions  at  Ottawa. — 
The  Dixon  conference. — The  Freeport  debate  and  its  im 
portant  consequences. — Mr.  Lincoln's  minor  meetings. — His 
impressive  speech  at  Edwardsville. — Increasing  excitement 
as  the  campaign  proceeded. — Remarkable  gatherings  at 
Charleston  and  Galesburg. — Debates  at  Quincy  and  Alton. 
— The  "  Danites." — Senator  Trumbull,  Owen  Lovejoy,  Carl 
Schurz,  Frank  P.  Blair,  and  other  participants. — The  elec 
tion 88-132 

CHAPTER  V. 

A  glimpse  of  Lincoln's  home. — Sunday  in  the  office  with 
the  boys. — Mrs.  Lincoln's  temper. — Troubles  with  the  serv 
ants. — Letter  to  John  E.  Rosette. — What  Lincoln  did 
when  the  domestic  sea  was  troubled. — A  retrospect. — Lin 
coln's  want  of  speculation. — His  superstition. — Reading  the 
life  of  Edmund  Burke. — His  scientific  notions. — Writing  the 
book  against  Christianity. — Recollections  of  Lincoln's  views 
by  old  friends. — Statement  of  Mrs.  Lincoln.  .  .  .  .  133-156 


CONTENTS.  v 

CHAPTER  VI. 

FACES 

Effect  of  the  canvass  of  1858  on  Lincoln's  pocket-book. — 
Attempts  to  lecture. — On  the  stump  with  Douglas  in  Ohio. — 
Incidents  of  the  Ohio  canvass. — The  dawn  of  1860. — Presi 
dential  suggestions. — Meeting  in  the  office  of  the  Secretary 
of  State. — The  Cooper  Institute  speech. — Speaking  in  New 
England. — Looming  up. — Preparing  for  Chicago. — Letters 
to  a  friend. — The  Decatur  convention. — John  Hanks  bring 
ing  in  the  rails. — The  Chicago  convention. — The  canvass  of 
1860. — Lincoln  casting  his  ballot. — Attitude  of  the  clergy  in 
Springfield. — The  election  and  result 157-178 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Arrival  of  the  office-seekers  in  Springfield. — Recollections 
of  a  newspaper  correspondent. — How  Lincoln  received  the 
cabinet-makers. — Making  up  the  cabinet. — A  letter  from 
Henry  Wilson. — Visiting  Chicago  and  meeting  with  Joshua 
F.  Speed. — Preparing  the  Inaugural  address. — Lincoln's  self- 
confidence. — Separation  from  his  step-mother. — Last  days 
in  Springfield. — Parting  with  old  associates. — Departure  of 
the  Presidential  party  from  Springfield. — The  journey  to 
Washington  and  efforts  to  interrupt  the  same. — The  investi 
gations  of  Allan  Pinkerton. — The  Inauguration.  .  .  .  179-207 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

In  the  Presidential  chair. — Looking  after  his  friends. — 
Settling  the  claims  of  David  Davis. — Swett's  letter. — The 
visit  of  Herndon. — The  testimony  of  Mrs.  Edwards. — Let 
ter  from  and  interview  with  Mrs.  Lincoln. — A  glimpse  into 
the  White  House. — A  letter  from  John  Hay. — Bancroft's 
eulogy. — Strictures  of  David  Davis. — Dennis  Hanks  in 
Washington.  ............  208-230 

CHAPTER  IX. 

The  recollections  of  Lincoln  by  Joshua  F.  Speed. — An  in 
teresting  letter  by  Leonard  Swett ,  231-248 


vi  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  X. 

PAGES 

Lincoln  face  to  face  with  the  realities  of  civil  war. — 
Master  of  the  situation. — The  distrust  of  old  politicians. — 
How  the  President  viewed  the  battle  of  Bull  Run. — An 
interesting  reminiscence  by  Robert  L.  Wilson. — Lincoln's 
plan  to  suppress  the  Rebellion. — Dealing  with  McClellan 
and  Grant. — Efforts  to  hasten  the  Emancipation  Proclama 
tion. — Lincoln  withstands  the  pressure. — Calling  the  Cabinet 
together  and  reading  the  decree. — The  letter  to  the  "  Uncon 
ditional  Union"  men. — The  campaign  of  1864. — Lincoln  and 
Andrew  Johnson  nominated  and  elected. — The  sensational 
report  of  Judge  Advocate  General  Holt. — Interesting  state 
ments  by  David  Davis  and  Joseph  E.  McDonald. — How 
the  President  retained  Indiana  in  the  column  of  Republi 
can  States.— The  letter  to  General  Sherman.— The  result  of 
the  election. — The  second  Inauguration. — The  address. — 
Military  movements. — The  surrender  at  Appomattox. — Lin 
coln  visits  the  army  in  Virginia. — Entering  Richmond. — The 
end  of  the  war  and  the  dawn  of  peace. — Stricken  down  by 
the  assassin,  John  Wilkes  Booth. — Details  of  the  cruel  deed. 
—The  President's  death.— The  funeral  at  the  White  House. 
— Conveying  the  remains  of  the  dead  chieftain  to  Spring 
field. — The  tribute  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher. — The  funeral 
at  Springfield.— The  capture  and  death  of  Booth.— The 
arrest,  trial,  and  execution  of  his  fellow  conspirators.  .  249-291 

CHAPTER  XL 

The  visit  of  Dr.  Holland  to  Springfield. — What  he  learned 
from  Lincoln's  neighbors. — Their  contradictory  opinions. — 
Description  by  the  author  of  Lincoln's  person. — How  he 
walked. — His  face  and  head. — Cause  of  his  melancholy. — 
His  perceptions. — His  memory  and  association  of  ideas. — 
Concentration  of  thought. — The  crucible  of  his  analytical 
mind. — The  secret  of  his  judgment. — The  faith  of  his  opin 
ions  and  the  firmness  of  his  conclusions. — His  belief  in  the 
power  of  motive. — The  four  great  elements  of  his  character. 
— His  reason;  his  conscience;  his  sense  of  right;  his  love 


CONTENTS.  vii 

PAGES 

of  the  truth. — A  meek,  quiet,  unobtrusive  gentleman. — His 
humanity. — Will  power. — Want  of  interest  in  local  affairs 
and  small  things. — Love  for  his  friends. — The  combination 
of  characteristics. — His  intense  devotion  to  the  truth. — His 
weak  points. — Cool  and  masterly  power  of  statement. — 
Simplicity  and  candor;  easy  of  approach  and  thoroughly 
democratic. — His  presence  a  charm,  and  his  conversation 
a  sweet  recollection. — A  leader  of  the  people. — Strong  with 
the  masses. — A  conservative  statesman. — The  central  figure 
of  our  national  history. — The  sublime  type  of  our  civiliza 
tion. — The  man  for  the  hour ...  292-320 

APPENDIX. 

Unpublished  Family  Letters     .  .  ....  321-326 

An  Incident  on  the  Circuit 327,  328 

Lincoln's  Fellow  Lawyers 328 

The  Truce  with  Douglas. — Testimony  of  Irwin     .       .       .  329 

The  Bloomington  Convention .•  329,  330 

An  Office  Discussion. — Lincoln's  Idea  of  War      .       .       .  330,  331 

Lincoln  and  the  Know-Nothings 331 

Lincoln's  Views  on  the  Rights  of  Suffrage   .              ...  333 

The  Burial  of  the  Assassin  Booth  .  ...  333,  334 
A  Tribute  to  Lincoln  by  a  Colleague  at  the  Bar  .  .  .  334,  335 
Lincoln  at  Fort  Monroe  ...  33S~338 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 

VOL.  II. 


PAGE 


Lincoln  during  the  debate  with  Douglas,  1858  .       .  Frontispiece 

Lyman  Trumbull 46 

Hall  of  Representatives,  State-House,  Springfield    ....     68 

Fac -simile  of  letter  to  A.  Campbell 71 

The  Lincoln  residence,  Springfield 136 

Extract  from  letter  to  Kansas  delegate,  March  10,  1860      .       .  168 

Abraham  Lincoln,  1860 179 

Springfield  Passenger  Station,  Great  Western  Railway         .       .  196 
Edward  D.  Baker,  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  David  Davis          .       .251 

Ford's  Theatre,  Washington 273 

The  Petersen  House,  Washington 278 

The  St.  Gaudens  Statue  of  Lincoln      ...  ,         314 

The  Lincoln  Monument  in  Springfield        .  ...  319 


THE   LIFE   OF   LINCOLN, 


CHAPTER  I. 

A  LAW  office  is  a  dull,  dry  place  so  far  as 
pleasurable  or  interesting  incidents  are  concerned. 
If  one  is  in  search  of  stories  of  fraud,  deceit, 
cruelty,  broken  promises,  blasted  homes,  there  is 
no  better  place  to  learn  them  than  a  law  office. 
But  to  the  majority  of  persons  these  painful  recitals 
are  anything  but  attractive,  and  it  is  well  perhaps 
that  it  should  be  so.  In  the  office,  as  in  the  court 
room,  Lincoln,  when  discussing  any  point,  was  never 
arbitrary  or  insinuating.  He  was  deferential,  cool, 
patient,  and  respectful.  When  he  reached  the  of 
fice,  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  first 
thing  he  did  was  to  pick  up  a  newspaper,  spread 
himself  out  on  an  old  sofa,  one  leg  on  a  chair,  and 
read  aloud,  much  to  my  discomfort.  Singularly 
enough  Lincoln  never  read  any  other  way  but 
aloud.  This  habit  used  to  annoy  me  almost  beyond 
the  point  of  endurance.  I  once  asked  him  why  he 
did  so.  This  was  his  explanation :  "  When  I  read 
aloud  two  senses  catch  the  idea :  first,  I  see  what  I 
read ;  second,  I  hear  it,  and  therefore  I  can  remem 
ber  it  better."  He  never  studied  law  books  unless 
a  case  was  on  hand  for  consideration — never  fol 
lowed  up  the  decisions  of  the  supreme  courts,  as 
other  lawyers  did.  It  seemed  as  if  he  depended  for 

I 


•2.  ..  ... .......  .  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

his  effectiveness  in  managing  a  lawsuit  entirely  on 
the  stimulus  and  inspiration  of  the  final  hour.  He 
paid  but  little  attention  to  the  fees  and  money  mat 
ters  of  the  firm — usually  leaving  all  such  to  me. 
He  never  entered  an  item  in  the  account  book.  If 
any  one  paid  money  to  him  which  belonged  to  the 
firm,  on  arriving  at  the  office  he  divided  it  with  me. 
If  I  was  not  there,  he  would  wrap  up  my  share  in  a 
piece  of  paper  and  place  it  in  my  drawer — marking 
it  with  a  pencil,  "  Case  of  Roe  vs.  Doe. — Herndon's 
half." 

On  many  topics  he  was  not  a  good  conversation 
alist,  because  he  felt  that  he  was  not  learned 
enough.  Neither  was  he  a  good  listener.  Putting 
it  a  little  strongly,  he  was  often  not  even  polite.  If 
present  with  others,  or  participating  in  a  conversa 
tion,  he  was  rather  abrupt,  and  in  his  anxiety  to  say 
something  apt  or  to  illustrate  the  subject  tinder 
discussion,  would  burst  in  with  a  story.  In  our 
office  I  have  known  him  to  consume  the  whole  fore 
noon  relating  stories.  If  a  man  came  to  see  him 
for  the  purpose  of  finding  out  something  which  he 
did  not  care  to  let  him  know  and  at  the  same  time 
did  not  want  to  refuse  him,  he  was  very  adroit.  In 
such  cases  Lincoln  would  do  most  of  the  talking, 
swinging  around  what  he  suspected  was  the  vital 
point,  but  never  nearing  it,  interlarding  his  answers 
with  a  seemingly  endless  supply  of  stories  and  jokes. 
The  interview  being  both  interesting  and  pleasant, 
the  man  would  depart  in  good  humor,  believing 
he  had  accomplished  his  mission.  After  he  had 
walked  away  a  few  squares  and  had  cooled  off,  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  3 

question  would  come  up,  "  Well,  what  did  I  find 
out  ? "  Blowing  away  the  froth  of  Lincoln's  hu 
morous  narratives  he  would  find  nothing  substan 
tial  left. 

"  As  he  entered  the  trial,"  relates  one  of  his  col 
leagues  at  the  bar,*  "  where  most  lawyers  would  ob 
ject  he  would  say  he  '  reckoned '  it  would  be  fair  to 
let  this  in,  or  that ;  and  sometimes,  when  his  adver 
sary  could  not  quite  prove  what  Lincoln  knew  to 
be  the  truth,  he  *  reckoned  '  it  would  be  fair  to  admit 
the  truth  to  be  so-and-so.  When  he  did  object  to 
the  court,  and  when  he  heard  his  objections  an 
swered,  he  would  often  say,  '  Well,  I  reckon  I  must 
be  wrong/  Now,  about  the  time  he  had  practised 
this  three-fourths  through  the  case,  if  his  adversary 
didn't  understand  him,  he  would  wake  up  in  a  few 
minutes  learning  that  he  had  feared  the  Greeks  too 
late,  and  find  himself  beaten.  He  was  wise  as  a 
serpent  in  the  trial  of  a  cause,  but  I  have  had  too 
many  scares  from  his  blows  to  certify  that  he  was 
harmless  as  a  dove.  When  the  whole  thing  was 
unravelled,  the  adversary  would  begin  to  see  that 
what  he  was  so  blandly  giving  away  was  simply 
what  he  couldn't  get  and  keep.  By  giving  away 
six  points  and  carrying  the  seventh  he  carried  his 
case,  and  the  whole  case  hanging  on  the  seventh, 
he  traded  away  everything  which  would  give  him 
the  least  aid  in  carrying  that.  Any  man  who  took 
Lincoln  for  a  simple-minded  man  would  very  soon 
wake  up  with  his  back  in  a  ditch." 

*  Leonard  Swett. 


4  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

Lincoln's  restless  ambition  found  its  gratification 
only  in  the  field  of  politics.  He  used  the  law 
merely  as  a  stepping-stone  to  what  he  considered  a 
more  attractive  condition  in  the  political  world.  In 
the  allurements  held  out  by  the  latter  he  seemed 
to  be  happy.  Nothing  in  Lincoln's  life  has  pro 
voked  more  discussion  than  the  question  of  his 
ability  as  a  lawyer.  I  feel  warranted  in  saying  that 
he  was  at  the  same  time  a  very  great  and  a  very 
insignificant  lawyer.  Judge  David  Davis,  in  his 
eulogy  on  Lincoln  at  Indianapolis,  delivered  at  the 
meeting  of  the  bar  there  in  May,  1865,  said  this: 
"  In  all  the  elements  that  constituted  a  lawyer  he 
had  few  equals.  He  was  great  at  nisi  prius  and  before 
an  appellate  tribunal.  He  seized  the  strong  points 
of  a  cause  and  presented  them  with  clearness  and 
great  compactness.  His  mind  was  logical  and  direct, 
and  he  did  not  indulge  in  extraneous  discussion. 
Generalities  and  platitudes  had  no  charm  for  him. 
An  unfailing  vein  of  humor  never  deserted  him, 
and  he  was  able  to  claim  the  attention  of  court  and 
jury  when  the  cause  was  most  uninteresting  by  the 
appropriateness  of  his  anecdotes.  His  power  of 
comparison  was  large,  and  he  rarely  failed  in  a  legal 
discussion  to  use  that  mode  of  reasoning.  The 
framework  of  his  mental  and  moral  being  was 
honesty,  and  a  wrong  case  was  poorly  defended  by 
him.  The  ability  which  some  eminent  lawyers  pos 
sess  of  explaining  away  the  bad  points  of  a  cause  by 
ingenious  sophistry  was  denied  him.  In  order  to 
bring  into  full  activity  his  great  powers  it  was  nec 
essary  that  he  should  be  convinced  of  the  right  and 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  5 

justice  of  the  matter  which  he  advocated.  When 
so  convinced,  whether  the  cause  was  great  or  small 
he  was  usually  successful."  * 

This  statement  of  Judge  Davis  in  general  is  cor 
rect,  but  in  some  particulars  is  faulty.  It  was 
intended  as  a  eulogy  on  Lincoln,  and  as  such  would 
not  admit  of  as  many  limitations  and  modifications 
a?  if  spoken  under  other  circumstances.  In  1866 
Judge  Davis  said  in  a  statement  made  to  me  in  his 
home  at  Bloomington,  which  I  still  have,  "  Mr.  Lin 
coln  had  no  managing  faculty  nor  organizing  power ; 
hence  a  child  could  conform  to  the  simple  and  tech 
nical  rules,  the  means  and  the  modes  of  getting  at 
justice,  better  than  he.  The  law  has  its  own  rules, 
and  a  student  could  get  at  them  or  keep  with  them 
better  than  Lincoln.  Sometimes  he  was  forced  to 
study  these  if  he  could  not  get  the  rubbish  of  a 
case  removed.  But  all  the  way  through  his  lack  of 
method  and  organizing  ability  was  clearly  appar 
ent."  The  idea  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  great  lawyer 
in  the  higher  courts  and  a  good  nisi  prius  lawyer, 
and  yet  that  a  child  or  student  could  manage  a  case 
in  court  better  than  he,  seems  strangely  inconsistent, 
but  the  facts  of  his  life  as  a  lawyer  will  reconcile 
this  and  other  apparent  contradictions. 

I  was  not  only  associated  with  Mr.  Lincoln  in 
Springfield,  but  was  frequently  on  the  circuit  with 

*  He  never  took  advantage  of  a  man's  low  character  to  prejudice 
the  jury.  Mr.  Lincoln  thought  his  duty  to  his  client  extended  to  what 
was  honorable  and  high-minded,  just  and  noble — nothing  further. 
Hence  the  meanest  man  at  the  bar  always  paid  great  deference  and 
respect  to  him.— David  Davis,  Sept.  10,  1866,  MS. 


6  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

him,  but  of  course  not  so  much  as  Judge  Davis, 
who  held  the  court,  and  whom  Lincoln  followed 
around  on  the  circuit  for  at  least  six  months  out  of 
the  year.  I  easily  realized  that  Lincoln  was  strik 
ingly  deficient  in  the  technical  rules  of  the  law. 
Although  he  was  constantly  reminding  young  legal 
'aspirants  to  study  and  "work,  work,"  yet  I  doubt 
if  he  ever  read  a  single  elementary  law  book 
through  in  his  life.  In  fact,  I  may  truthfully  say, 
I  never  knew  him  to  read  through  a  law  book  of 
any  kind.  Practically,  he  knew  nothing  of  the  rules 
of  evidence,  of  pleading,  or  practice,  as  laid  down 
in  the  text-books,  and  seemed  to  care  nothing  about 
them.  He  had  a  keen  sense  of  justice,  and  strug 
gled  for  it,  throwing  aside  forms,  methods,  and 
rules,  until  it  appeared  pure  as  a  ray  of  light  flash 
ing  through  a  fog-bank.  He  was  not  a  general 
reader  in  any  field  of  knowledge,  but  when  he  had 
occasion  to  learn  or  investigate  any  subject  he  was 
thorough  and  indefatigable  in  his  search.  He  not 
only  went  to  the  root  of  a  question,  but  dug  up  the 
root,  and  separated  and  analyzed  every  fibre  of  it. 
He  was  in  every  respect  a  case  lawyer,  never 
cramming  himself  on  any  question  till  he  had  a  case 
in  which  the  question  was  involved.  He  thought 
slowly  and  acted  slowly;  he  must  needs  have 
time  to  analyze  all  the  facts  in  a  case  and  wind 
them  into  a  connected  story.  I  have  seen  him 
lose  cases  of  the  plainest  justice,  which  the  most 
inexperienced  member  of  the  bar  would  have 
gained  without  effort.  Two  things  were  essential 
to  his  success  in  managing  a  case.  One  was  time; 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  7 

the  other  a  feeling  of  confidence  in  the  justice  of 
the  cause  he  represented.  He  used  to  say,  "  If  I 
can  free  this  case  from  technicalities  and  get  it  prop 
erly  swung  to  the  jury,  I'll  win  it."  But  if  either  of 
these  essentials  were  lacking,  he  was  the  weakest 
man  at  the  bar.  He  was  greatest  in  my  opinion  as 
a  lawyer  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois.  There 
the  cases  were  never  hurried.  The  attorneys  gen 
erally  prepared  their  cases  in  the  form  of  briefs,  and 
the  movements  of  the  court  and  counsel  were  so 
slow  that  no  one  need  be  caught  by  surprise.  I  was 
with  Lincoln  once  and  listened  to  an  oral  argument 
by  him  in  which  he  rehearsed  an  extended  history 
of  the  law.  It  was  a  carefully  prepared  and  mas 
terly  discourse,  but,  as  I  thought,  entirely  useless. 
After  he  was  through  and  we  were  walking  home  I 
asked  him  why  he  went  so  far  back  in  the  history  of 
the  law.  I  presumed  the  court  knew  enough  his 
tory.  "  That's  where  you're  mistaken,"  was  his 
instant  rejoinder.  "  I  dared  not  trust  the  case  on 
the  presumption  that  the  court  knows  everything — 
in  fact  I  argued  it  on  the  presumption  that  the  court 
didn't  know  anything,"  a  statement  which,  when 
one  reviews  the  decision  of  our  appellate  courts,  is 
not  so  extravagant  as  one  would  at  first  suppose. 

I  used  to  grow  restless  at  Lincoln's  slow  move 
ments  and  speeches  in  court.  "  Speak  with  more 
vim,"  I  would  frequently  say,  "  and  arouse  the  jury 
— talk  faster  and  keep  them  awake."  In  answer  to 
such  a  suggestion  he  one  day  made  use  of  this  illus 
tration  :  "  Give  me  your  little  pen-knife,  with  its 
short  blade,  and  hand  me  that  old  jack-knife,  lying 
25 


8  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

on  the  table."  Opening  the  blade  of  the  pen-knife 
he  said :  "  You  see,  this  blade  at  the  point  travels 
rapidly,  but  only  through  a  small  portion  of  space 
till  it  stops;  while  the  long  blade  of  the  jack-knife 
moves  no  faster  but  through  a  much  greater  space 
than  the  small  one.  Just  so  with  the  long, 
labored  movements  of  my  mind.  I  may  not  emit 
ideas  as  rapidly  as  others,  because  I  am  compelled 
by  nature  to  speak  slowly,  but  when  I  do  throw  off 
a  thought  it  seems  to  me,  though  it  comes  with 
some  effort,  it  has  force  enough  to  cut  its  own  way 
and  travel  a  greater  distance."  This  was  said  to 
me  when  we  were  alone  in  our  office  simply  for 
illustration.  It  was  not  said  boastingly. 

As  a  specimen  of  Lincoln's  method  of  reasoning 
I  insert  here  the  brief  or  notes  of  an  argument  used 
by  him  in  a  lawsuit  as  late  as  1858.  I  copy  from 
the  original : 

"  Legislation  and  adjudication  must  follow  and 
conform  to  the  progress  of  society. 

"  The  progress  of  society  now  begins  to  produce 
cases  of  the  transfer  for  debts  of  the  entire  prop 
erty  of  railroad  corporations ;  and  to  enable  trans 
ferees  to  use  and  enjoy  the  transferred  property 
legislation  and  adjudication  begin  to  be  necessary. 

"  Shall  this  class  of  legislation  just  now  beginning 
with  us  be  general  or  special? 

"  Section  Ten  of  our  Constitution  requires  that  it 
should  be  general,  if  possible.  (Read  the  Section.) 

"  Special  legislation  always  trenches  upon  the 
judicial  department;  and  in  so  far  violates  Section 
Two  of  the  Constitution.  (Read  it.) 

"  Just  reasoning — policy — is  in  favor  of  general 
legislation — else  the  legislature  will  be  loaded  down 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  g 

with  the  investigation  of  smaller  cases — a  work 
which  the  courts  ought  to  perform,  and  can  perform 
much  more  perfectly.  How  can  the  Legislature 
rightly  decide  the  facts  between  P.  &  B.  and  S.  C. 
&Co.? 

"  It  is  said  that  under  a  general  law,  whenever  a 
R.  R.  Co.  gets  tired  of  its  debts,  it  may  transfer 
fraudulently  to  get  rid  of  them.  So  they  may — so 
may  individuals;  and  which — the  Legislature  or  the 
courts — is  best  suited  to  try  the  question  of  fraud  in 
either  case? 

"  It  is  said,  if  a  purchaser  have  acquired  legal 
rights,  let  him  not  be  robbed  of  them,  but  if  he 
needs  legislation  let  him  submit  to  just  terms  to  ob 
tain  it. 

"  Let  him,  say  we,  have  general  law  in  advance 
(guarded  in  every  possible  way  against  fraud),  so 
that,  when  he  acquires  a  legal  right,  he  will  have  no 
occasion  to  wait  for  additional  legislation ;  and  if  he 
has  practised  fraud  let  the  courts  so  decide." 

David  Davis  said  this  of  Lincoln :  "  When  in  a 
lawsuit  he  believed  his  client  was  oppressed, — as  in 
the  Wright  case, — he  was  hurtful  in  denunciation. 
When  he  attacked  meanness,  fraud,  or  vice,  he  was 
powerful,  merciless  in  his  castigation."  ^The  Wright  \ 
case  referred  to  was  a  suit  brought  by  Lincoln  and 
myself  to  compel  a  pension  agent  to  refund  a  por 
tion  of  a  fee  which  he  had  withheld  from  the  widow 
of  a  revolutionary  soldier.  The  entire  pension  was 
$400,  of  which  sum  the  agent  had  retained  one-half. 
The  pensioner,  an  old  woman  crippled  and  bent 
with  age,  came  hobbling  into  the  office  and  told 
her  story.  It  stirred  Lincoln  up,  and  he  walked 
over  to  the  agent's  office  and  made  a  demand  for  a 


I0  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

return  of  the  money,  but  without  success.  Then 
suit  was  brought.  The  day  before  the  trial  I  hunted 
up  for  Lincoln,  at  his  request,  a  history  of  the 
Revolutionary  War,  of  which  he  read  a  good  portion. 
He  told  me  to  remain  during  the  trial  until  I  had 
heard  his  address  to  the  jury.  "  For,"  said  he,  "  I 
am  going  to  skin  Wright,  and  get  that  money 
back."  The  only  witness  we  introduced  was  the 
old  lady,  who  through  her  tears  told  her  story.  In 
his  speech  to  the  jury,  Lincoln  recounted  the  causes 
leading  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolutionary  strug 
gle,  and  then  drew  a  vivid  picture  of  the  hardships 
of  Valley  Forge,  describing  with  minuteness  the 
men,  barefooted  and  with  bleeding  feet,  creeping 
over  the  ice.  As  he  reached  that  point  in  his  speech 
wherein  he  narrated  the  hardened  action  of  the 
defendant  in  fleecing  the  old  woman  of  her  pension 
his  eyes  flashed,  and  throwing  aside  his  handker 
chief,  which  he  held  in  his  right  hand,  he  fairly 
launched  into  him.  His  speech  for  the  next  five  or 
ten  minutes  justified  the  declaration  of  Davis,  that 
he  was  "  hurtful  in  denunciation  and  merciless  in 
castigation."  There  was  no  rule  of  court  to  re 
strain  him  in  his  argument,  and  I  never,  either  on 
the  stump  or  on  other  occasions  in  court,  saw  him 
so  wrought  up.  Before  he  closed,  he  drew  an  ideal 
picture  of  the  plaintiffs  husband,  the  deceased 
soldier,  parting  with  his  wife  at  the  threshold  of 
their  home,  and  kissing  their  little  babe  in  the 
cradle,  as  he  started  for  the  war.  "  Time  rolls  by," 
he  said,  in  conclusion ;  "  the  heroes  of  '76  have 
passed  away  and  are  encamped  on  the  other 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 


II 


shore.  The  soldier  has  gone  to  rest,  and  now,  crip 
pled,  blinded,  and  broken,  his  widow  comes  to  you 
and  to  me,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  to  right  her 
wrongs.  She  was  not  always  thus.  She  was  once  a 
beautiful  young  woman.  Her  step  was  as  elastic, 
her  face  as  fair,  and  her  voice  as  sweet  as  any  that 
rang  in  the  mountains  of  old  Virginia.  But  now  she 
is  poor  and  defenceless.  Out  here  on  the  prairies  of 
Illinois,  many  hundreds  of  miles  away  from  the 
scenes  of  her  childhood,  she  appeals  to  us,  who 
enjoy  the  privileges  achieved  for  us  by  the  patriots 
of  the  Revolution,  for  our  sympathetic  aid  and 
manly  protection.  All  I  ask  is,  shall  we  befriend 
her?  "  The  speech  made  the  desired  impression  on 
the  jury.  Half  of  them  were  in  tears,  while  the  de 
fendant  sat  in  the  court  room,  drawn  up  and  writh 
ing  under  the  fire  of  Lincoln's  fierce  invective. 
The  jury  returned  a  verdict  in  our  favor  for  every 
cent  we  demanded.  Lincoln  was  so  much  interest- 
ecTm  the  old  lady  that  he  became  her  surety  for 
costs,  paid  her  way  home,  and  her  hotel  bill  while 
she  was  in  Springfield.  When  the  judgment  was 
paid  we  remitted  the  proceeds  to  her  and  made  no 
charge  for  our  services.  Lincoln's  notes  for  the 
argument  were  unique :  "  No  contract. — Not  profes 
sional  services. — Unreasonable  charge. — Money  re 
tained  by  Deft  not  given  by  Pl'ff. — Revolutionary 
War. — Describe  Valley  Forge  privations. — Ice. — 
Soldier's  bleeding  feet. — Pl'ff's  husband. — Soldier 
leaving  home  for  army. — Skin  Deft. — Close." 

It  must  not  be  inferred  from  this  that  Lincoln 
was    in   the   habit   of   slopping   over.      He   never 


12  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

hunted  up  acts  of  injustice,  but  if  they  came  to  him 
he  was  easily  enlisted.  In  1855  he  was  attending 
court  at  the  town  of  Clinton,  Illinois.  Fifteen 
ladies  from  a  neighboring  village  in  the  county  had 
been  indicted  for  trespass.  Their  offence  con 
sisted  in  sweeping  down  on  one  Tanner,  the 
keeper  of  a  saloon  in  the  village,  and  knocking  in 
the  heads  of  his  barrels.  Lincoln  was  not  employed 
in  the  case,  but  sat  watching  the  trial  as  it  pro 
ceeded.  In  defending  the  ladies  their  attorney 
seemed  to  evince  a  little  want  of  tact,  and  this 
prompted  one  of  the  former  to  invite  Mr.  Lincoln  to 
add  a  few  words  to  the  jury,  if  he  thought  he  could 
aid  their  cause.  He  was  too  gallant  to  refuse  and, 
their  attorney  having  consented,  he  made  use  of 
the  following  argument :  "  In  this  case  I  would 
change  the  order  of  indictment  and  have  it  read 
The  State  vs.  Mr.  Whiskey,  instead  of  The  State  vs. 
The  Ladies;  and  touching  these  there  are  three 
laws :  The  law  of  self-protection  ;  the  law  of  the  land, 
or  statute  law ;  and  the  moral  law,  or  law  of  God. 
First,  the  law  of  self-protection  is  a  law  of  necessity, 
as  evinced  by  our  forefathers  in  casting  the  tea 
overboard  and  asserting  their  right  to  the  pursuit 
of  life,  liberty,  and  happiness.  In  this  case  it  is 
the  only  defence  the  ladies  have,  for  Tanner  neither 
feared  God  nor  regarded  man.  Second,  the  law  of 
the  land,  or  statute  law,  and  Tanner  is  recreant 
to  both.  Third,  the  moral  law,  or  law  of  God,  and 
this  is  probably  a  law  for  the  violation  of  which 
the  jury  can  fix  no  punishment."  Lincoln  gave 
some  of  his  own  observations  on  the  ruinous 


THE  LIFE    OF  LINCOLN.  I3 

effects  of  whiskey  in  society,  and  demanded  its 
early  suppression.  After  he  had  concluded,  the 
Court,  without  awaiting  the  return  of  the  jury,  dis 
missed  the  ladies,  saying :  "  Ladies,  go  home.  I  will 
require  no  bond  of  you,  and  if  any  fine  is  ever  wanted 
of  you,  we  will  let  you  know." 

After  Lincoln's  death  a  fellow-lawyer  paid  this 
tribute  to  him :  *  "He  was  wonderfully  kind,  care 
ful,  and  just.  He  had  an  immense  stock  of  com 
mon-sense,  and  he  had  faith  enough  in  it  to  trust  it 
in  every  emergency.  Mr.  Lincoln's  love  of  justice 
and  fair-play  was  his  predominating  trait.  I  have 
often  listened  to  him  when  I  thought  he  would 
certainly  state  his  case  out  of  court.  It  was  not  in 
his  nature  to  assume  or  attempt  to  bolster  up  a 
false  position.f  He  would  abandon  his  case  first. 

*  Joseph  Gillespie,  MS.,  Letter,  Oct.  8,  1886. 

f  "Early  in  1858  at  Danville,  111.,  I  met  Lincoln,  Swett,  and  others 
who  had  returned  from  court  in  an  adjoining  county,  and  were  dis 
cussing  the  various  features  of  a  murder  trial  in  which  Lincoln  had 
made  a  vigorous  fight  for  the  prosecution  and  Swett  had  defended. 
The  plea  of  the  defence  was  insanity.  On  inquiring  the  name  of  the 
defendant  I  was  surprised  to  learn  that  it  was  my  old  friend  Isaac 
Wyant,  formerly  of  Indiana.  I  told  them  that  I  had  been  Wyant's 
counsel  frequently  and  had  defended  him  from  almost  every  charge 
in  the  calendar  of  crimes;  and  that  he  was  a  weak  brother  and  could 
be  led  into  almost  everything.  At  once  Lincoln  began  to  manifest 
great  interest  in  Wyant's  history,  and  had  to  be  told  all  about  him. 
The  next  day  on  the  way  to  the  court-house  he  told  me  he  had  been 
greatly  troubled  over  what  I  related  about  Wyant;  that  his  sleep 
had  been  disturbed  by  the  fear  that  he  had  been  too  bitter  and  unre 
lenting  in  his  prosecution  of  him.  'I  acted,'  he  said,  'on  the  the 
ory  that  he  was  'possuming  insanity,  and  now  I  fear  I  have  been 
too  severe  and  that  the  poor  fellow  may  be  insane  after  all.  If  he 
cannot  realize  the  wrong  of  his  crime,  then  I  was  wrong  in  aiding  to 
punish  him.'  "—Hon.  Joseph  E.  McDonald,  August,  1888.  State 
ment  to  J.  W.  W. 


I4  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

He  did  so  in  the  case  of  Buckmaster  for  the  use  of 
Dedham  vs.  Beems  and  Arthur,  in  our  Supreme 
Court,  in  which  I  happened  to  be  opposed  to  him. 
Another  gentleman,  less  fastidious,  took  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  place  and  gained  the  case." 

A  widow  who  owned  a  piece  of  valuable  land 
employed  Lincoln  and  myself  to  examine  the  title 
to  the  property,  with  the  view  of  ascertaining 
whether  certain  alleged  tax  liens  were  just  or  not. 
In  tracing  back  the  title  we  were  not  satisfied  with 
the  description  of  the  ground  in  one  of  the  deeds 
of  conveyance.  Lincoln,  to  settle  the  matter,  took 
his  surveying  instruments  and  surveyed  the  ground 
himself.  The  result  proved  that  Charles  Matheney, 
a  former  grantor,  had  sold  the  land  at  so  much  per 
acre,  but  that  in  describing  it  he  had  made  an  error 
and  conveyed  more  land  than  he  received  pay  for. 
This  land  descended  to  our  client,  and  Lincoln 
after  a  careful  survey  and  calculation,  decided  that 
she  ought  to  pay  to  Matheney's  heirs  the  sum 
which  he  had  shown  was  due  them  by  reason  of  the 
erroneous  conveyance.  To  this  she  entered  stren 
uous  objections,  but  when  assured  that  unless  she 
consented  to  this  act  of  plain  justice  we  would  drop 
the  case,  she  finally,  though  with  great  reluctance, 
consented.  She  paid  the  required  amount,  and  this 
we  divided  up  into  smaller  sums  proportioned  to 
the  number  of  heirs.  Lincoln  himself  distributed 
these  to  the  heirs,  obtaining  a  receipt  from  each  one.* 

*  "DEAR  HERNDON: 

"  One  morning,  not  long  before  Lincoln's  nomination — a  year  per 
haps — I  was  in  your  office  and  heard  the  following:  Mr.  Lincoln, 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  IS 

While  Mr.  Lincoln  was  no  financier  and  had  no 
propensity  to  acquire  property, — no  avarice  of  the 
get, — yet  he  had  the  capacity  of  retention,  or  the 
avarice  of  the  keep.  He  never  speculated  in  lands 
or  anything  else.  In  the  days  of  land  offices  and 
"  choice  lots  in  a  growing  town  "  he  had  many  op 
portunities  to  make  safe  ventures  promising  good 
returns,  but  he  never  availed  himself  of  them.  His 
brother  lawyers  were  making  good  investments  and 
lucky  turns,  some  of  them,  Davis,  for  example,  were 
rapidly  becoming  wealthy ;  but  Lincoln  cared  noth 
ing  for  speculation  ;  in  fact  there  was  no  venturesome 
spirit  in  him.  His  habits  were  very  simple.  He 
was  not  fastidious  as  to  food  or  dress.  His  hat  was 
brown,  faded,  and  the  nap  usually  worn  or  rubbed 
off.  He  wore  a  short  cloak  and  sometimes  a  shawl. 
His  coat  and  vest  hung  loosely  on  his  gaunt  frame, 
and  his  trousers  were  invariably  too  short.  On  the 

seated  at  the  baize-covered  table  in  the  centre  of  the  office,  listened 
attentively  to  a  man  who  talked  earnestly  and  in  a  low  tone.  After 
being  thus  engaged  for  some  time  Lincoln  at  length  broke  in,  and  I 
shall  never  forget  his  reply.  'Yes/  he  said,  'we  can  doubtless  gain 
your  case  for  you;  we  can  set  a  whole  neighborhood  at  loggerheads; 
we  can  distress  a  widowed  mother  and  her  six  fatherless  children 
and  thereby  get  for  you  six  hundred  dollars  to  which  you  seem  to 
have  a  legal  claim,  but  which  rightfully  belongs,  it  appears  to  me,  as 
much  to  the  woman  and  her  children  as  it  does  to  you.  You  must 
remember  that  some  things  legally  right  are  not  morally  right.  We 
shall  not  take  your  case,  but  will  give  you  a  little  advice  for  which 
we  will  charge  you  nothing.  You  seem  to  be  a  sprightly,  energetic 
man;  we  would  advise  you  to  try  your  hand  at  making  six  hundred 
dollars  in  some  other  way.' 

"Yours, 

"LORD." 

From  undated  MS.,  about  1866. 


16  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

circuit  he  carried  in  one  hand  a  faded  green 
umbrella,  with  "  A.  Lincoln  "  in  large  white  cotton 
or  muslin  letters  sewed  on  the  inside.  The  knob 
was  gone  from  the  handle,  and  when  closed  a  piece 
of  cord  was  usually  tied  around  it  in  the  middle 
to  keep  it  from  flying  open.  In  the  other  hand  he 
carried  a  literal  carpet-bag,  in  which  were  stored 
the  few  papers  to  be  used  in  court,  and  undercloth 
ing  enough  to  last  till  his  return  to  Springfield. 
He  slept  in  a  long,  coarse,  yellow  flannel  shirt,  which 
reached  half-way  between  his  knees  and  ankles.  It 
probably  was  not  made  to  fit  his  bony  figure  as  com 
pletely  as  Beau  Brummers  shirt,  and  hence  we  can 
somewhat  appreciate  the  sensation  of  a  young  law 
yer  who,  on  seeing  him  thus  arrayed  for  the  first 
time,  observed  afterwards  that,  "  He  was  the  ungod- 
liest  figure  I  ever  saw." 

"  He  never  complained  of  the  food,  bed,  or  lodg 
ings.  If  every  other  fellow  grumbled  at  the  bill-of- 
fare  which  greeted  us  at  many  of  the  dingy  tav 
erns,"  says  David  Davis,  "  Lincoln  said  nothing." 
He  was  once  presiding  as  judge  in  the  absence  of 
Davis,  and  the  case  before  him  was  an  action 
brought  by  a  merchant  against  the  father  of  a 
minor  son  for  a  suit  of  clothes  sold  to  the  son 
without  parental  authority.  The  real  question  was 
whether  the  clothes  were  necessary,  and  suited  to 
the  condition  of  the  son's  life.  The  father  was  a 
wealthy  farmer;  the  bill  for  the  clothing  was 
twenty-eight  dollars.  I  happened  in  court  just  as 
Lincoln  was  rendering  his  decision.  He  ruled 
against  the  plea  of  necessity.  "  I  have  rarely  in  my 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  I7 

life,"    said    he,    "  worn    a   suit   of    clothes    costing 
twenty-eight  dollars." 

"  Several  of  us  lawyers,"  remarked  one  of  his  col 
leagues,  "  in  the  eastern  end  of  the  circuit  annoyed 
Lincoln  once  while  he  was  holding  court  for  Davis 
by  attempting  to  defend  against  a  note  to  which 
there  were  many  makers.  We  had  no  legal,  but  a 
good  moral  defence,  but  what  we  wanted  most  of  all 
was  to  stave  it  off  till  the  next  term  of  court  by  one 
expedient  or  another.  We  bothered  '  the  court ' 
about  it  till  late  on  Saturday,  the  day  of  adjourn 
ment.  He  adjourned  for  supper  with  nothing  left 
but  this  case  to  dispose  of.  After  supper  he  heard 
our  twaddle  for  nearly  an  hour,  and  then  made  this 
odd  entry :  '  L.  D.  Chaddon  vs.  J.  D.  Beasley  et  al. 
April  Term,  1856.  Champaign  County  Court.  Plea 
in  abatement  by  B.  Z.  Green,  a  defendant  not 
served,  filed  Saturday  at  n  o'clock  A.M.,  April  24, 
1856,  stricken  from  the  files  by  order  of  court.  De 
murrer  to  declaration,  if  there  ever  was  one,  over 
ruled.  Defendants  who  are  served  now,  at  8  o'clock, 
p.  M.,  of  the  last  day  of  the  term,  ask  to  plead  to 
the  merits,  which  is  denied  by  the  court  on  the 
ground  that  the  offer  comes  too  late,  and  there 
fore,  as  by  nil  dicet,  judgment  is  rendered  for  Pl'ff. 
Clerk  assess  damages.  A.  Lincoln,  Judge  pro 
tern.'  "  *  The  lawyer  who  reads  this  singular  entry 
will  appreciate  its  oddity  if  no  one  else  does.  After 
making  it  one  of  the  lawyers,  on  recovering  his 
astonishment,  ventured  to  inquire,  "  Well,  Lincoln, 

*  H.  C.  Whitney,  MS.,  letter,  Nov.  13,  1865. 


i8  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

how  can  we  get  this  case  up  again?"  Lincoln 
eyed  him  quizzically  a  moment,  and  then  answered, 
"  You  have  all  been  so  'mighty  smart  about  this 
case  you  can  find  out  how  to  take  it  up  again  your 
selves."  * 

The  same  gentleman  who  furnishes  this  last  inci 
dent,  and  who  was  afterwards  a  trusted  friend  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  Henry  C.  Whitney,  has  described  most 
happily  the  delights  of  a  life  on  the  circuit.  A  bit 
of  it,  referring  to  Lincoln,  I  apprehend,  cannot  be 
deemed  out  of  place  here.  "  In  October,  1854, 
Abraham  Lincoln,"  he  relates,  "  drove  into  our  town 
(Urbana)  to  attend  court.  He  had  the  appearance 
of  a  rough,  intelligent  farmer,  and  his  rude,  home 
made  buggy  and  raw-boned  horse  enforced  this 
belief.  I  had  met  him  for  the  first  time  in  June  of 
the  same  year.  David  Davis  and  Leonard  Swett 
had  just  preceded  him.  The  next  morning  he 

*  "During  my  first  attendance  at  court  in  Menard  County,"  relates 
a  lawyer  who  travelled  the  circuit  with  Lincoln,  "some  thirty 
young  men  had  been  indicted  for  playing  cards,  and  Lincoln  and  I 
were  employed  in  their  defence.  The  prosecuting  attorney,  in  framing 
the  indictments,  alternately  charged  the  defendants  with  playing  a 
certain  game  of  cards  called  'seven-up,'  and  in  the  next  bill  charged 
them  with  playing  cards  at  a  certain  game  called  'old  sledge.' 
Four  defendants  were  indicted  in  each  bill.  The  prosecutor,  being 
entirely  unacquainted  with  games  at  cards,  did  not  know  the  fact 
that  both  'seven-up'  and  'old  sledge*  were  one  and  the  same. 
Upon  the  trial  on  the  bills  describing  the  game  as  'seven-up'  our 
witnesses  would  swear  that  the  game  played  was  'old  sledge,'  and 
vice  versa  on  the  bills  alleging  the  latter.  The  result  was  an  acquit 
tal  in  every  case  under  the  instructions  of  the  Court.  The  prosecutor 
never  found  out  the  dodge  until  the  trials  were  over,  and  immense 
fun  and  rejoicing  were  indulged  in  at  the  result." 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  19 

started  North,  on  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad,  and 
as  he  went  in  an  old  omnibus  he  played  on  a  boy's 
harp  all  the  way  to  the  depot.  I  used  to  attend 
the  Danville  court,  and  while  there,  usually  roomed 
with  Lincoln  and  Davis.  We  stopped  at  McCor- 
mick's  hotel,  an  old-fashioned  frame  country  tavern. 
Jurors,  counsel,  prisoners,  everybody  ate  at  a  long 
table.  The  judge,  Lincoln,  and  I  had  the  ladies' 
parlor  fitted  up  with  two  beds.  Lincoln,  Swett, 
McWilliams,  of  Bloomington,  Voorhees,  of  Coving- 
ton,  Ind.,  O.  L.  Davis,  Drake,  Ward  Lamon,  Law 
rence,  Beckwith,  and  O.  F.  Harmon,  of  Danville, 
Whiteman,  cf  Iroquois  County,  and  Chandler,  of 
Williamsport,  Ind.,  constituted  the  bar.  Lincoln, 
Davis,  Swett,  I,  and  others  who  came  from  the 
western  part  of  the  state  would  drive  from  Urbana. 
The  distance  was  thirty-six  miles.  We  sang  and 
exchanged  stories  all  the  way.  We  had  no  hesi 
tation  in  stopping  at  a  farm-house  and  ordering 
them  to  kill  and  cook  a  chicken  for  dinner.  By 
dark  we  reached  Danville.  Lamon  would  have 
whiskey  in  his  office  for  the  drinking  ones,  and  those 
who  indulged  in  petty  gambling  would  get  by 
themselves  and  play  till  late  in  the  night.  Lincoln, 
Davis,  and  a  few  local  wits  would  spend  the  evening 
in  Davis's  room,  talking  politics,  wisdom,  and  fun. 
Lincoln  and  Swett  were  the  great  lawyers,  and 
Lincoln  always  wanted  Swett  in  jury  cases. 
We  who  stopped  at  the  hotel  would  all  breakfast 
together  and  frequently  go  out  into  the  woods  and 
hold  court.  We  were  of  more  consequence  than 
a  court  and  bar  is  now.  The  feelings  were  those  of 


20  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

great  fraternity  in  the  bar,  and  if  we  desired  to  re 
strict  our  circle  it  was  no  trouble  for  Davis  to  freeze 
out  any  disagreeable  persons.  Lincoln  was  fond  of 
going  all  by  himself  to  any  little  show  or  concert. 
I  have  known  him  to  slip  away  and  spend  the  entire 
evening  at  a  little  magic  lantern  show  intended  for 
children.  A  travelling  concert  company,  calling 
themselves  the  '  Newhall  Family,'  were  sure  of 
drawing  Lincoln.  One  of  their  number,  Mrs.  Hil- 
lis,  a  good  singer,  he  used  to  tell  us  was  the  only 
woman  who  ever  seemed  to  exhibit  any  liking  for 
him.  I  attended  a  negro-minstrel  show  in  Chicago, 
where  we  heard  Dixie  sung.  It  was  entirely  new, 
and  pleased  him  greatly.  In  court  he  was  irrepres 
sible  and  apparently  inexhaustible  in  his  fund  of 
stories.  Where  in  the  world  a  man  who  had 
travelled  so  little  and  struggled  amid  the  restric 
tions  of  such  limited  surroundings  could  gather  up 
such  apt  and  unique  yarns  we  never  could  guess. 
Davis  appreciated  Lincoln's  talent  in  this  direction, 
and  was  always  ready  to  stop  business  to  hear  one 
of  his  stories.  Lincoln  was  very  bashful  when  in 
the  presence  of  ladies.  I  remember  once  we  were 
invited  to  take  tea  at  a  friend's  house,  and  while  in 
the  parlor  I  was  called  to  the  front  gate  to  see  a 
client.  When  I  returned,  Lincoln,  who  had  under 
taken  to  entertain  the  ladies,  was  twisting  and 
squirming  in  his  chair,  and  as  bashful  as  a  school 
boy.  Everywhere,  though  we  met  a  hard  crowd  at 
every  court,  and  though  things  were  free  and  easy, 
we  were  treated  with  great  respect." 

Probably   the    most    important    lawsuit    Lincoln 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  2j 

and  I  conducted  was  one  in  which  we  defended  the 
Illinois  Central  Railroad  in  an  action  brought  by 
McLean  County,  Illinois,  in  August,  1853,  to  re 
cover  taxes  alleged  to  be  due  the  county  from  the 
road.  The  Legislature  had  granted  the  road  immu 
nity  from  taxation,  and  this  was  a  case  intended 
to  test  the  constitutionality  of  the  law.  The 
road  sent  a  retainer  fee  of  $250.  In  the  lower  court 
the  case  was  decided  in  favor  of  the  railroad.  An 
appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court  followed,  and  there  it 
was  argued  twice,  and  finally  decided  in  our  favor. 
This  last  decision  was  rendered  some  time  in  1855. 
Mr.  Lincoln  soon  went  to  Chicago  and  presented 
our  bill  for  legal  services.  We  only  asked  for 
$2000  more.  The  official  to  whom  he  was  referred, 
— supposed  to  have  been  the  superintendent  George 
B.  McClellan  who  afterwards  became  the  eminent 
general, — looking  at  the  bill  expressed  great  sur 
prise.  "  Why,  sir,"  he  exclaimed,  "  this  is  as  much 
as  Daniel  Webster  himself  would  have  charged. 
We  cannot  allow  such  a  claim."  Stung  by  the  re 
buff,  Lincoln  withdrew  the  bill,  and  started  for 
home.  On  the  way  he  stopped  at  Bloomington. 
There  he  met  Grant  Goodrich,  Archibald  Williams, 
Norman  B.  Judd,  O.  H.  Browning,  and  other 
attorneys,  who,  on  learning  of  his  modest  charge 
for  such  valuable  services  rendered  the  railroad, 
induced  him  to  increase  the  demand  to  $5000, 
and  to  bring  suit  for  that  sum.  This  was  done  at 
once.  On  the  trial  six  lawyers  certified  that  the 
bill  was  reasonable,  and  judgment  for  that  sum 
went  by  default.  The  judgment  was  promptly  paid. 


22  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

Lincoln  gave  me  my  half,  and  much  as  we  dep 
recated  the  avarice  of  great  corporations,  we  both 
thanked  the  Lord  for  letting  the  Illinois  Central 
Railroad  fall  into  our  hands. 

In  the  summer  of  1857  Lincoln  was  employed  by 
Mr.  Manny,  of  Rockford,  111.,  to  defend  him  in  an 
action  brought  by  McCormick,*  who  was  one  of  the 
inventors  of  the  reaping  machine,  for  infringement  of 
patent.  Lincoln  had  been  recommended  to  Manny  by 
E.  B.  Washburne,  then  a  member  of  Congress  from 
northern  Illinois.  The  case  was  to  be  tried  before 
Judge  McLean  at  Cincinnati,  in  the  Circuit  Court  of 
the  United  States.  The  counsel  for  McCormick  was 
Reverdy  Johnson.  Edwin  M.  Stanton  and  George 
Harding,  of  Philadelphia,  were  associated  on  the 
other  side  with  Lincoln.  The  latter  came  to  Cin 
cinnati  a  few  days  before  the  argument  took  place, 
and  stopped  at  the  house  of  a  friend.  "  The  case 
was  one  of  great  importance  pecuniarily,"  relates  a 
lawyer  f  in  Cincinnati,  who  was  a  member  of  the 
bar  at  the  time,  "  and  in  the  law  questions  involved. 
Reverdy  Johnson  represented  the  plaintiff.  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  prepared  himself  with  the  greatest 
care;  his  ambition  was  up  to  speak  in  the  case  and 
to  measure  swords  with  the  renowned  lawyer  from 
Baltimore.  It  was  understood  between  his  client 
and  himself  before  his  coming  that  Mr.  Harding,  of 
Philadelphia,  was  to  be  associated  with  him  in  the 
case,  and  was  to  make  the  '  mechanical  argument/ 

*  The  case,  McCormick  vs.  Manny,  is  reported  in  6  McLean's  Rep. 

P-  539- 

fW.  M.  Dickson. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  23 

After  reaching  Cincinnati,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  little 
surprised  and  annoyed  to  learn  that  his  client  had 
also  associated  with  him  Mr.  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  of 
Pittsburg,  and  a  lawyer  of  our  own  bar,  the  reason 
assigned  being  that  the  importance  of  the  case  re 
quired  a  man  of  the  experience  and  power  of  Mr. 
Stanton  to  meet  Mr.  Johnson.  The  Cincinnati  law 
yer  was  appointed  for  his  '  local  influence/  These 
reasons  did  not  remove  the  slight  conveyed  in  the 
employment  without  consultation  with  him  of  this 
additional  counsel.  He  keenly  felt  it,  but  acquiesced. 
The  trial  of  the  case  came  on;  the  counsel  for 
defence  met  each  morning  for  consultation.  On 
one  of  these  occasions  one  of  the  counsel  moved 
that  only  two  of  them  should  speak  in  the  case. 
This  matter  was  also  acquiesced  in.  It  had  always 
been  understood  that  Mr.  Harding  was  to  speak  to 
explain  the  mechanism  of  the  reapers.  So  this 
motion  excluded  either  Mr.  Lincoln  or  Mr.  Stanton, 
— which?  By  the  custom  of  the  bar,  as  between 
counsel  of  equal  standing,  and  in  the  absence  of 
any  action  of  the  client,  the  original  counsel  speaks. 
By  this  rule  Mr.  Lincoln  had  precedence.  Mr. 
Stanton  suggested  to  Mr.  Lincoln  to  make  the 
speech.  Mr.  Lincoln  answered,  '  No,  you  speak/ 
Mr.  Stanton  replied,  '  I  will/  and  taking  up  his  hat, 
said  he  would  go  and  make  preparation.  Mr.  Lin 
coln  acquiesced  in  this,  but  was  greatly  grieved 
and  mortified ;  he  took  but  little  more  interest  in 
the  case,  though  remaining  until  the  conclusion  of 
the  trial.  He  seemed  to  be  greatly  depressed,  and 
gave  evidence  of  that  tendency  to  melancholy 
26 


24  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

which  so  marked  his  character.  His  parting  on 
leaving  the  city  cannot  be  forgotten.  Cordially 
shaking  the  hand  of  his  hostess  he  said :  *  You  have 
made  my  stay  here  most  agreeable,  and  I  am  a 
thousand  times  obliged  to  you ;  but  in  reply  to 
your  request  for  me  to  come  again,  I  must  say  to 
you  I  never  expect  to  be  in  Cincinnati  again.  I  have 
nothing  against  the  city,  but  things  have  so  hap 
pened  here  as  to  make  it  undesirable  for  me  ever 
to  return.'  Lincoln  felt  that  Stanton  had  not 
only  been  very  discourteous  to  him,  but  had  pur 
posely  ignored  him  in  the  case,  and  that  he  had 
received  rather  rude,  if  not  unkind,  treatment  from 
all  hands.  Stanton,  in  his  brusque  and  abrupt  way, 
it  is  said,  described  him  as  a  '  long,  lank  creature 
from  Illinois,  wearing  a  dirty  linen  duster  for  a  coat, 
on  the  back  of  which  the  perspiration  had  splotched 
wide  stains  that  resembled  a  map  of  the  continent/ 
Mr.  Lincoln,"  adds  Mr.  Dickson,  "  remained  in  Cin 
cinnati  about  a  week,  moving  freely  around,  yet 
not  twenty  men  knew  him  personally  or  knew  he 
was  here;  not  a  hundred  would  have  known  who 
he  was  had  his  name  been  given  to  them.  He 
came  with  the  fond  hope  of  making  fame  in  a 
forensic  contest  with  Reverdy  Johnson.  He  was 
pushed  aside,  humiliated  and  mortified.  He  at 
tached  to  the  innocent  city  the  displeasure  that 
filled  his  bosom,  and  shook  its  dust  from  his  feet." 
On  his  return  to  Springfield  he  was  somewhat  reti 
cent  regarding  the  trial,  and,  contrary  to  his  custom, 
communicated  to  his  associates  at  the  bar  but  few 
of  its  incidents.  He  told  me  that  he  had  been 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  25 

"  roughly  handled  by  that  man  Stanton " ;  that 
he  overheard  the  latter  from  an  adjoining  room, 
while  the  door  was  slightly  ajar,  referring  to  Lin 
coln,  inquire  of  another,  "  Where  did  that  long- 
armed  creature  come  from,  and  what  can  he  expect 
to  do  in  this  case?"  During  the  trial  Lincoln 
formed  a  poor  opinion  of  Judge  McLean.  He 
characterized  him  as  an  "  old  granny,"  with  consid 
erable  vigor  of  mind,  but  no  perception  at  all.  "  If 
you  were  to  point  your  finger  at  him,"  he  put  it, 
"  and  a  darning  needle  at  the  same  time  he  never 
would  know  which  was  the  sharpest." 

As  Lincoln  grew  into  public  favor  and  achieved 
such  marked  success  in  the  profession,  half  the  bar 
of  Springfield  began  to  be  envious  of  his  growing 
popularity.  I  believe  there  is  less  jealousy  and  bit 
ter  feeling  among  lawyers  than  professional  men  of 
any  other  class ;  but  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that 
in  that  early  day  a  portion  of  the  bar  in  every 
county  seat,  if  not  a  majority  of  the  lawyers  every 
where,  were  politicians.  Stuart  frequently  differed 
from  Lincoln  on  political  questions,  and  was  full 
of  envy.  Likewise  those  who  coincided  with  Lin 
coln  in  his  political  views  were  disturbed  in  the 
same  way.  Even  Logan  was  not  wholly  free  from 
the  degrading  passion.  But  in  this  respect  Lincoln 
suffered  no  more  than  other  great  characters  who 
preceded  him  in  the  world's  history. 

That  which  Lincoln's  adversaries  in  a  lawsuit 
feared  most  of  all  was  his  apparent  disregard  of 
custom  or  professional  propriety  in  managing  a 
case  before  a  jury.  He  brushed  aside  all  rules,  and 


26  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

very  often  resorted  to  some  strange  and  strategic 
performance  which  invariably  broke  his  opponent 
down  or  exercised  some  peculiar  influence  over  the 
jury.  Hence  the  other  side  in  a  case  were  in  con 
stant  fear  of  one  of  his  dramatic  strokes,  or  trem 
bled  lest  he  should  "  ring  in "  some  ingeniously 
planned  interruption  not  on  the  programme.  In  a 
case  where  Judge  Logan — always  earnest  and  grave 
— opposed  him,  Lincoln  created  no  little  merriment 
by  his  reference  to  Logan's  style  of  dress.  He 
carried  the  surprise  in  store  for  the  latter,  till 
he  reached  his  turn  before  the  jury.  Addressing 
them,  he  said :  "  Gentlemen,  you  must  be  careful 
and  not  permit  yourselves  to  be  overcome  by  the 
eloquence  of  counsel  for  the  defence.  Judge  Logan, 
I  know,  is  an  effective  lawyer.  I  have  met  him 
too  often  to  doubt  that;  but  shrewd  and  careful 
though  he  be,  still  he  is  sometimes  wrong.  Since 
this  trial  has  begun  I  have  discovered  that,  with 
all  his  caution  and  fastidiousness,  he  hasn't  knowl 
edge  enough  to  put  his  shirt  on  right."  Logan 
turned  red  as  crimson,  but  sure  enough,  Lincoln 
was  correct,  for  the  former  had  donned  a  new  shirt, 
and  by  mistake  had  drawn  it  over  his  head  with  the 
pleated  bosom  behind.  The  general  laugh  which 
followed  destroyed  the  effect  of  Logan's  eloquence 
over  the  jury — the  very  point  at  which  Lincoln 
aimed. 

The  trial  of  William  Armstrong  *  for  the  murder 

*  This  incident  in  Lincoln's  career  has  been  most  happily  utilized 
by  Dr.  Edward  Eggleston  in  his  story  "The  Graysons,"  recently 
published  in  the  Century  Magazine. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  27 

of  James  P.  Metzger,  in  May,  1858,  at  Beardstown, 
Illinois,  in  which  Lincoln  secured  the  acquittal  of 
the  defendant,  was  one  of  the  gratifying  triumphs  in 
his  career  as  a  lawyer.  Lincoln's  defence,  wherein 
he  floored  the  principal  prosecuting  witness,  who 
had  testified  positively  to  seeing  the  fatal  blow 
struck  in  the  moonlight,  by  showing  from  an  alma 
nac  that  the  moon  had  set,  was  not  more  convincing 
than  his  eloquent  and  irresistible  appeal  in  his 
client's  favor.  The  latter's  mother,  old  Hannah 
Armstrong,  the  friend  of  his  youth,  had  solicited 
him  to  defend  her  son.  "  He  told  the  jury,"  relates 
the  prosecuting  attorney,  "  of  his  once  being  a  poor, 
friendless  boy;  that  Armstrong's  parents  took  him 
into  their  house,  fed  and  clothed  him,  and  gave  him 
a  home.  There  were  tears  in  his  eyes  as  he  spoke. 
The  sight  of  his  tall,  quivering  frame,  and  the  par 
ticulars  of  the  story  he  so  pathetically  told,  moved 
the  jury  to  tears  also,  and  they  forgot  the  guilt  of 
the  defendant  in  their  admiration  of  his  advocate. 
It  was  the  most  touching  scene  I  ever  witnessed."  * 
Before  passing  it  may  be  well  to  listen  to  the  hum 
ble  tribute  of  old  Hannah  Armstrong,  the  defend 
ant's  mother :  "  Lincoln  had  said  to  me,  '  Hannah, 
your  son  will  be  cleared  before  sundown/  I  left 
the  court-room,  and  they  came  and  told  me  that  my 
son  was  cleared  and  a  free  man.  I  went  up  to  the 
court-house.  The  jury  shook  hands  with  me ;  so 
did  the  judge  and  Lincoln;  tears  streamed  down 
Lincoln's  eyes  ....  After  the  trial  I  asked  him 

*  J.  Henry  Shaw,  letter,  Aug.  22,  1866,  MS. 


28  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

what  his  fee  would  be;  told  him  I  was  poor. 
'  Why,  Hannah,'  he  said,  '  I  sha'n't  charge  you  a 
cent,  and  anything  else  I  can  do  for  you,  will  do  it 
willingly  and  without  charge/  He  afterwards  wrote 
to  me  about  a  piece  of  land  which  certain  men  were 
trying  to  get  from  me,  and  said :  *  Hannah,  they 
can't  get  your  land.  Let  them  try  it  in  the  Cir 
cuit  Court,  and  then  you  appeal  it;  bring  it  to  the 
Supreme  Court  and  I  and  Herndon  will  attend  to  it 
for  nothing.' "  * 

The  last  suit  of  any  importance  in  which  Lin 
coln  was  personally  engaged,  was  known  as  the 
Johnson  sand-bar  case.  It  involved  the  title  to 
certain  lands,  the  accretion  on  the  shores  of  Lake 
Michigan,  in  or  near  Chicago.  It  was  tried  in  the 
United  States  Circuit  Court  at  Chicago  in  April  and 
May,  1860.  During  the  trial,  the  Court — Judge 
Drummond — and  all  the  counsel  on  both  sides  dined 
at  the  residence  of  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  afterwards  a 
member  of  Congress.  "  Douglas  and  Lincoln,"  re 
lates  Mr.  Arnold,  "were  at  the  time  both  candi 
dates  for  the  nomination  for  President.  There 
were  active  and  ardent  political  friends  of  each  at 
the  table,  and  when  the  sentiment  was  proposed, 
'  May  Illinois  furnish  the  next  President,'  it  was 
drank  with  enthusiasm  by  the  friends  of  both  Lin 
coln  and  Douglas."  f 

I  could  fill  this  volume  with  reminiscences  of  Lin 
coln's  career  as  a  lawyer,  but  lest  the  reader  should 
tire  of  what  must  savor  in  many  cases  of  monotony 

*  From  statement,  Nov.  24,  1865. 
f  Arnold's  "Lincoln,"  p.  90. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  29 

it  is  best  to  move  on.  I  have  made  this  portion  of 
the  book  rather  full ;  but  as  Lincoln's  individuality 
and  peculiarities  were  more  marked  in  the  law  office 
and  court-room  than  anywhere  else  it  will  play  its 
part  in  making  up  the  picture  of  the  man.  Enough 
has  been  told  to  show  how,  in  the  face  of  adverse 
fortune  and  the  lack  of  early  training,  and  by  force 
of  his  indomitable  will  and  self-confidence,  he  gained 
such  ascendency  among  the  lawyers  of  Illinois. 
The  reader  is  enabled  thereby  to  understand  the 
philosophy  of  his  growth. 

But  now  another  field  is  preparing  to  claim  him. 
There  will  soon  be  great  need  for  his  clear  reason, 
masterly  mind  and  heroic  devotion  to  principle. 
The  distant  mutterings  of  an  approaching  contest 
are  driving  scattered  factions  into  a  union  of  senti 
ment  and  action.  As  the  phalanxes  of  warriors  are 
preparing  for  action,  amid  the  rattle  of  forensic 
musketry,  Lincoln,  their  courageous  leader,  equipped 
for  battle,  springs  into  view. 


CHAPTER  II. 

WHILE  Lincoln  in  a  certain  sense  was  buried  in 
the  law  from  the  time  his  career  in  Congress  closed 
till,  to  use  his  own  words,  "  the  repeal  of  the  Mis 
souri  Compromise  aroused  him  again,"  yet  he  was 
a  careful  student  of  his  times  and  kept  abreast  of 
the  many  and  varied  movements  in  politics.  He 
was  generally  on  the  Whig  electoral  tickets,  and 
made  himself  heard  during  each  successive  canvas,* 

*  In  the  campaign  of  1852,  when  Pierce  was  the  Democratic  candi 
date  for  President,  Douglas  made  speeches  for  him  in  almost  every 
State  in  the  Union.  His  "key-note"  was  sounded  at  Richmond,  Va. 
Lincoln,  whose  reputation  was  limited  by  the  boundaries  of  Illinois, 
was  invited  by  the  Scott  Club  of  Springfield  to  answer  it,  but  his 
soul  and  heart  were  not  in  the  undertaking.  He  had  not  yet  been 
awakened,  and,  considering  it  entire,  the  speech  was  a  poor  effort. 
Another  has  truthfully  said  of  it,  "If  it  was  distinguished  by  one 
quality  above  another  it  was  by  its  attempts  at  humor,  and  all  those 
attempts  were  strained  and  affected,  as  well  as  very  coarse.  He  dis 
played  a  jealous  and  petulant  temper  from  the  first  to  the  last, 
wholly  beneath  the  dignity  of  the  occasion  and  the  importance  of 
the  topic.  Considered  as  a  whole  it  may  be  said  that  none  of  his 
public  performances  was  more  unworthy  of  its  really  noble  author 
than  this  one.  The  closing  paragraph  will  serve  as  a  fair  sample 
of  the  entire  speech:  "Let  us  stand  by  our  candidate  [Gen.  Scott] 
as  faithfully  as  he  has  always  stood  by  our  country,  and  I  much 
doubt  if  we  do  not  perceive  a  slight  abatement  of  Judge  Douglas's 
confidence  in  Providence  as  well  as  the  people.  I  suspect  that  confi 
dence  is  not  more  firmly  fixed  with  the  Judge  than  it  was  with  the 
old  woman  whose  horse  ran  away  with  her  in  a  buggy.  She  said 

30 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  3I 

but  he  seemed  to  have  lost  that  zealous  interest  in 
politics  which  characterized  his  earlier  days.  He 
plodded  on  unaware  of,  and  seemingly  without  am 
bition  for,  the  great  distinction  that  lay  in  store  for 
him.  John  T.  Stuart  relates  *  that,  as  he  and  Lin 
coln  were  returning  from  the  court  in  Tazewell 
county  in  1850,  and  were  nearing  the  little  town 
of  Dillon,  they  engaged  in  a  discussion  of  the  polit 
ical  situation.  "  As  we  were  coming  down  the  hill," 
are  Stuart's  words,  "  I  said,  '  Lincoln,  the  time  is 
coming  when  we  shall  have  to  be  all  either  Aboli 
tionists  or  Democrats/  He  thought  a  moment 
and  then  answered,  ruefully  and  emphatically, 
'  When  that  time  comes  my  mind  is  made  up,  for  I 
believe  the  slavery  question  can  never  be  success 
fully  compromised/  I  responded  with  equal  empha 
sis,  '  My  mind  is  made  up  too/  "  Thus  it  was  with 
Lincoln.  But  he  was  too  slow  to  suit  the  impetuous 
demand  of  the  few  pronounced  Abolitionists  whom 
he  met  in  his  daily  walks.  The  sentiment  of  the 
majority  in  Springfield  tended  in  the  other  direc 
tion,  and,  thus  environed,  Lincoln  lay  down  like  the 
sleeping  lion.  The  future  would  yet  arouse  him. 
At  that  time  I  was  an  ardent  Abolitionist  in  senti 
ment.  I  used  to  warn  Lincoln  against  his  apparent 
conservatism  when  the  needs  of  the  hour  were  so 
great ;  but  his  only  answer  would  be,  "  Billy,  you're 

she  trusted  in  Providence  till  the  'britchen'  broke,  and  then  she 
didn't  know  what  on  'airth'  to  do.    The  chance  is  the  Judge  will 
see  the  'britchen'  broke,  and  then  he  can  at  his  leisure  bewail 
the  fate  of  Locofocoism  as  the  victim  of  misplaced  confidence." 
*  Statement,  J.  T.  S.,  MS.,  July  ai,  1865. 


32  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

too  rampant  and  spontaneous."  I  was  in  corre 
spondence  with  Sumner,  Greeley,  Phillips,  and  Gar 
rison,  and  was  thus  thoroughly  imbued  with  all  the 
rancor  drawn  from  such  strong  anti-slavery  sources. 
I  adhered  to  Lincoln,  relying  on  the  final  outcome  of 
his  sense  of  justice  and  right.  Every  time  a  good 
speech  on  the  great  issue  was  made  I  sent  for  it. 
Hence  you  could  find  on  my  table  the  latest  utter 
ances  of  Giddings,  Phillips,  Sumner,  Seward,  and 
one  whom  I  considered  grander  than  all  the  others 
— Theodore  Parker.  Lincoln  and  I  took  such 
papers  as  the  Chicago  Tribune,  New  York  Tribune, 
Anti-Slavery  Standard,  Emancipator,  and  National 
Era.  On  the  other  side  of  the  question  we  took  the 
Charleston  Mercury  and  the  Richmond  Enquirer. 
I  also  bought  a  book  called  "  Sociology,"  written 
by  one  Fitzhugh,  which  defended  and  justified  sla 
very  in  every  conceivable  way.  In  addition  I  pur 
chased  all  the  leading  histories  of  the  slavery  move 
ment,  and  other  works  which  treated  on  that  sub 
ject.  Lincoln  himself  never  bought  many  books,  but 
he  and  I  both  read  those  I  have  named.  After  read 
ing  them  we  would  discuss  the  questions  they 
touched  upon  and  the  ideas  they  suggested,  from 
our  different  points  of  view.  I  was  never  conscious 
of  having  made  much  of  an  impression  on  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  nor  do  I  believe  I  ever  changed  his  views. 
I  will  go  further  and  say,  that,  from  the  profound 
nature  of  his  conclusions  and  the  labored  method 
by  which  he  arrived  at  them,  no  man  is  entitled  to 
the  credit  of  having  either  changed  or  greatly  modi 
fied  them.  I  remember  once,  after  having  read  one 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  33 

of  Theodore  Parker's  sermons  on  slavery,  saying 
to  Mr.  Lincoln  substantially  this :  "  I  have  always 
noticed  that  ill-gotten  wealth  does  no  man  any  good. 
This  is  as  true  of  nations  as  individuals.  I  believe 
that  all  the  ill-gotten  gain  wrenched  by  us  from  the 
negro'  through  his  enslavement  will  eventually  be 
taken  from  us,  and  we  will  be  set  back  where  we 
began."  Lincoln  thought  my  prophecy  rather  dire 
ful.  He  doubted  seriously  if  either  of  us  would 
live  to  see  the  righting  of  so  great  a  wrong;  but 
years  after,  when  writing  his  second  Inaugural  ad 
dress,  he  endorsed  the  idea.  Clothing  it  in  the  most 
beautiful  language,  he  says :  "  Yet  if  God  wills  that 
it  [the  war]  continue  till  all  the  wealth  piled  by 
the  bondsman's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  un 
requited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of 
blood  drawn  by  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another 
drawn  by  the  sword,  as  was  said  three  thousand 
years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said,  *  The  judgments 
of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether/  " 

The  passage  in  May,  1854,  of  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  bill  swept  out  of  sight  the  Missouri  Com 
promise  and  the  Compromise  measures  of  1850. 
This  bill,  designed  and  carried  through  by  Douglas, 
was  regarded  by  him  as  the  masterpiece  of  all  his 
varied  achievements  in  legislation.  It  served  to 
prove  more  clearly  than  anything  he  had  ever  before 
done  his  flexibility  and  want  of  political  conscience. 
Although  in  years  gone  before  he  had  invoked  the 
vengeance  of  Heaven  on  the  ruthless  hand  that 
should  dare  to  disturb  the  sanctity  of  the  compact 
of  1821,  yet  now  he  was  the  arrogant  and  audacious 


34  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

leader  in  the  very  work  he  had  so  heartily  con 
demned.  When  we  consider  the  bill  and  the  unfor 
tunate  results  which  followed  it  in  the  border  States 
we  are  irresistibly  led  to  conclude  that  it  was,  all 
things  considered,  a  great  public  wrong  and  a  most 
lamentable  piece  of  political  jugglery.  The  stump 
speech  which  Thomas  H.  Benton  charged  that 
Douglas  had  "injected  into  the  belly  of  the  bill" 
contains  all  there  was  of  Popular  Sovereignty — "  It 
being  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  this  act  not 
to  legislate  slavery  into  any  Territory  or  State  nor 
to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave  the  people 
thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their 
domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only 
to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,"  an 
argument  which,  using  Lincoln's  words,  "  amounts 
to  this:  That  if  any  one  man  chooses  to  enslave 
another  no  third  man  shall  be  allowed  to  object." 
The  widespread  feeling  the  passage  of  this  law 
aroused  everywhere  over  the  Union  is  a  matter  of 
general  history.  It  stirred  up  in  New  England 
the  latent  hostility  to  the  aggression  of  slavery;  it 
stimulated  to  extraordinary  endeavors  the  derided 
Abolitionists,  arming  them  with  new  weapons;  it 
sounded  the  death-knell  of  the  gallant  old  Whig 
party ;  it  drove  together  strange,  discordant  elements 
in  readiness  to  fight  a  common  enemy;  it  brought 
to  the  forefront  a  leader  in  the  person  of  Lincoln. 

The  revolt  of  Cook,  Judd,  and  Palmer,  all  young 
and  progressive,  from  the  Democratic  majority  in 
the  Legislature  was  the  first  sign  of  discontent  in 
Illinois.  The  rude  and  partly  hostile  reception  of 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  35 

Douglas,  on  his  arrival  in  Chicago,  did  not  in  any 
degree  tend  to  allay  the  feeling  of  disapproval  so 
general  in  its  manifestation.  The  warriors,  young 
and  old,  removed  their  armor  from  the  walls,  and 
began  preparations  for  the  impending  conflict. 
Lincoln  had  made  a  few  speeches  in  aid  of  Scott 
during  the  campaign  of  1852,  but  they  were  efforts 
entirely  unworthy  of  the  man.  Now,  however,  a 
live  issue  was  presented  to  him.  No  one  realized 
this  sooner  than  he.  In  the  office  discussions  he 
grew  bolder  in  his  utterances.  He  insisted  that  the 
social  and  political  difference  between  slavery  and 
freedom  was  becoming  more  marked;  that  one 
must  overcome  the  other;  and  that  postponing  the 
struggle  between  them  would  only  make  it  the 
more  deadly  in  the  end.  [J'The  day  of  compro 
mise,"  he  still  contended,  "  has  passed.  These  two 
great  ideas  have  been  kept  apart  only  by  the  most 
artful  means.  They  are  like  two  wild  beasts  in 
sight  of  each  other,  but  chained  and  held  apart. 
Some  day  these  deadly  antagonists  will  one  or  the 
other  break  tbeir  bonds,  and  then  the  question 
will  be  settled/j  In  a  conversation  with  a  fellow- 
lawyer  *  he  said  of  slavery :  "  It  is  the  most 
glittering,  ostentatious,  and  displaying  property  in 
the  world,  and  now,  if  a  young  man  goes  courting, 
the  only  inquiry  is  how  many  negroes  he  or  his 
lady-love  owns.  The  love  for  slave  property  is 
swallowing  up  every  other  mercenary  possession. 
Slavery  is  a  great  and  crying  injustice — an  enormous 
national  crime."  At  another  time  he  made  the 

*  Joseph  Gillespie,  MS.  letter,  June  9,  '66. 


3 6  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

observation  that  it  was  "  singular  that  the  courts 
would  hold  that  a  man  never  lost  his  right  to  his 
property  that  had  been  stolen  from  him,  but  that 
he  instantly  lost  his  right  to  himself  if  he  was 
stolen."  It  is  useless  to  add  more  evidence — for 
"*  could  be  piled  mountain  high — showing  that  at 

e  very  outset  Mr.  Lincoln  was  sound  to  the  core 
01  the  injustice  and  crime  of  human  slavery. 

After  a  brief  rest  at  his  home  in  Chicago  Mr. 
Douglas  betook  himself  to  the  country,  and  in  Oc 
tober,  during  the  week  of  the  State  Fair,  we  find 
him  in  Springfield.  On  Tuesday  he  made  a  speech 
in  the  State  House  which,  in  view  of  the  hostile 
attitude  of  some  of  his  own  party  friends,  was  a 
labored  defence  of  his  position.  It  was  full  of  inge 
nious  sophistry  and  skilful  argument.  An  unprec 
edented  concourse  of  people  had  gathered  from  all 
parts  of  the  State,  and  Douglas,  fresh  from  the  halls 
of  Congress,  was  the  lion  of  the  hour.  On  the  fol 
lowing  day  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  the  champion  of  the 
opponents  of  Popular  Sovereignty,  was  selected  to 
represent  those  who  disagreed  with  the  new  legisla 
tion,  and  to  answer  Douglas.  His  speech  encour 
aged  his  friends  no  less  than  it  startled  his  enemies. 
At  this  time  I  was  zealously  interested  in  the  new 
movement,  and  not  less  so  in  Lincoln.  I  frequently 
wrote  the  editorials  in  the  Springfield  Journal,  the 
editor,  Simeon  Francis,  giving  to  Lincoln  and  to  me 
the  utmost  liberty  in  that  direction.  Occasionally 
Lincoln  would  write  out  matter  for  publication,  but 
I  believe  I  availed  myself  of  the  privilege  oftener 
than  he.  The  editorial  in  the  issue  containing  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  37 

speeches  of  Lincoln  and  Douglas  on  this  occasion 
was  my  own,  and  while  in  description  it  may  seem 
rather  strongly  imbued  with  youthful  enthusiasm, 
yet  on  reading  it  in  maturer  years  I  am  still  inclined 
to  believe  it  reasonably  faithful  to  the  facts  and 
the  situation.  "  The  anti-Nebraska  speech  of  M> 
Lincoln,"  says  the  article,  "  was  the  profoundest4h 
our  opinion  that  he  has  made  in  his  whole  life. '  He 
felt  upon  his  soul  the  truths  burn  which  he  uttered, 
and  all  present  felt  that  he  was  true  to  his  own  soul. 
His  feelings  once  or  twice  swelled  within,  and  came 
near  stifling  utterance.  He  quivered  with  emotion. 
The  whole  house  was  as  still  as  death.  He  attacked 
the  Nebraska  bill  with  unusual  warmth  and  energy ; 
and  all  felt  that  a  man  of  strength  was  its  enemy, 
and  that  he  intended  to  blast  it  if  he  could  by 
strong  and  manly  efforts.  He  was  most  successful, 
and  the  house  approved  the  glorious  triumph  of 
truth  by  loud  and  continued  huzzas.  Women 
waved  their  white  handkerchiefs  in  token  of  wo 
man's  silent  but  heartfelt  assent.  Douglas  felt 
the  sting;  the  animal  within  him  was  roused  be 
cause  he  frequently  interrupted  Mr.  Lincoln.  His 
friends  felt  that  he  was  crushed  by  Lincoln's  pow 
erful  argument,  manly  logic,  and  illustrations  from 
nature  around  us.  The  Nebraska  bill  was  shivered, 
and  like  a  tree  of  the  forest  was  torn  and  rent  asun 
der  by  the  hot  bolts  of  truth.  Mr.  Lincoln  exhib 
ited  Douglas  in  all  the  attitudes  he  could  be  placed, 
in  a  friendly  debate.  He  exhibited  the  bill  in  all  its 
aspects  to  show  its  humbuggery  and  falsehood,  and, 
when  thus  torn  to  rags,  cut  into  slips,  held  up 


38  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

to  the  gaze  of  the  vast  crowd,  a  kind  of  scorn  and 
mockery  was  visible  upon  the  face  of  the  crowd  and 
upon  the  lips  of  their  most  eloquent  speaker.  At 
the  conclusion  of  this  speech  every  man  and  child 
felt  that  it  was  unanswerable.  He  took  the  heart 
captive  and  broke  like  a  sun  over  the  understand- 
ing." 

Anent  the  subject  of  editorial  writing  it  may  not 
be  inappropriate  to  relate  that  Lincoln  and  I  both 
kept  on  furnishing  political  matter  of  many  varieties 
for  the  Springfield  Journal  until  1860.  Many  of 
the  editorials  that  I  wrote  were  intended  directly  or 
indirectly  to  promote  the  interest  of  Lincoln.  I 
wrote  one  on  the  advisability  of  annexing  Cuba  to 
the  United  States,  taking  the  rather  advanced 
ground  that  slavery  would  be  abolished  in  Cuba 
before  it  would  in  this  country — a  position  which 
aroused  no  little  controversy  with  other  papers. 
One  little  incident  occurs  to  me  in  this  connection 
which  may  not  be  without  interest  to  newspaper 
men.  A  newspaper  had  been  started  in  Springfield 
called  the  Conservative,  which,  it  was  believed,  was 
being  run  in  the  interest  of  the  Democratic  party. 
While  pretending  to  support  Fillmore  it  was  kept 
alive  by  Buchanan  men  and  other  kindred  spirits, 
who  were  somewhat  pro-slavery  in  their  views.  The 
thing  was  damaging  Lincoln  and  the  friends  of  free 
dom  more  than  an  avowed  Democratic  paper  could. 
The  editor,  an  easy,  good-natured  fellow,  simply 
placed  in  charge  to  execute  the  will  of  those  who 
gave  the  paper  its  financial  backing,  was  a  good 
friend  of  mine,  and  by  means  of  this  friendship  I  was 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  39 

always  well  informed  of  matters  in  the  Conservative 
editorial  room.  One  day  I  read  in  the  Richmond 
Enquirer  an  article  endorsing  slavery,  and  arguing 
that  from  principle  the  enslavement  of  either  whites 
or  blacks  was  justifiable  and  right.  I  showed  it  to 
Lincoln,  who  remarked  that  it  was  "  rather  rank 
doctrine  for  Northern  Democrats  to  endorse.  I 
should  like  to  see,"  he  said,  with  emphasis,  "  some 
of  these  Illinois  newspapers  champion  that."  I 
told  him  if  he  would  only  wait  and  keep  his  own 
counsel  I  would  have  a  pro-slavery  organ  in  Spring 
field  publish  that  very  article.  He  doubted  it,  but 
when  I  told  him  how  it  was  to  be  done  he  laughed 
and  said,  "  Go  in."  I  cut  the  slip  out  and  succeeded 
in  getting  it  in  the  paper  named.  Of  course  it  was 
a  trick,  but  it  acted  admirably.  Its  appearance  in 
the  new  organ,  although  without  comment,  almost 
ruined  that  valuable  journal,  and  my  good-natured 
friend  the  editor  was  nearly  overcome  by  the 
denunciation  of  those  who  were  responsible  for  the 
organ's  existence.  My  connection,  and  Lincoln's 
too, — for  he  endorsed  the  trick, — with  the  publica 
tion  of  the  condemned  article  was  eventually  dis 
covered,  and  we  were  thereafter  effectually  pre 
vented  from  getting  another  line  in  the  paper. 
The  anti-slavery  people  quoted  the  article  as  hav 
ing  been  endorsed  by  a  Democratic  newspaper  in 
Springfield,  and  Lincoln  himself  used  it  with  telling 
effect.  He  joined  in  the  popular  denunciation, 
expressing  great  astonishment  that  such  a  senti 
ment  could  find  lodgment  in  any  paper  in  Illinois, 
27 


4o  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

although  he  knew  full  well  how  the  whole  thing 
had  been  carried  through. 

During  the  remainder  of  the  State-Fair  week, 
speeches  were  made  by  Lyman  Trumbull,  Sidney 
Breese,  E.  D.  Taylor,  and  John  Calhoun,  none  of 
which  unfortunately  have  been  preserved.  Among 
those  who  mingled  in  the  crowd  and  listened  to 
them  was  Owen  Lovejoy,  a  radical,  fiery,  brave, 
fanatical  man,  it  may  be,  but  one  full  of  the  virus  of 
Abolitionism.  I  had  been  thoroughly  inoculated 
with  the  latter  myself,  and  so  had  many  others,  who 
helped  to  swell  the  throng.  The  Nebraska  move 
ment  had  kindled  anew  the  old  zeal,  and  inspired  us 
with  renewed  confidence  to  begin  the  crusade.  As 
many  of  us  as  could,  assembled  together  to  organ 
ize  for  the  campaign  before  us.  As  soon  therefore 
as  Lincoln  finished  his  speech  in  the  hall  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  Lovejoy,  moving  forward 
from  the  crowd,  announced  a  meeting  in  the  same 
place  that  evening  of  all  the  friends  of  Freedom. 
That  of  course  meant  the  Abolitionists  with  whom 
I  had  been  in  conference  all  the  day.  Their  plan 
had  been  to  induce  Mr.  Lincoln  to  speak  for  them 
at  their  meeting.  Strong  as  I  was  in  the  faith,  yet 
I  doubted  the  propriety  of  Lincoln's  taking  any 
stand  yet.  As  I  viewed  it,  he  was  ambitious  to 
climb  to  the  United  States  Senate,  and  on  grounds 
of  policy  it  would  not  do  for  him  to  occupy  at  that 
time  such  advanced  ground  as  we  were  taking.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  was  equally  as  dangerous  to 
refuse  a  speech  for  the  Abolitionists.  I  did  not 
know  how  he  felt  on  the  subject,  but  on  learning 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  4! 

that  Lovejoy  intended  to  approach  him  with  an 
invitation,  I  hunted  up  Lincoln  and  urged  him  to 
avoid  meeting  the  enthusiastic  champion  of  Aboli 
tionism.  "  Go  home  at  once,"  I  said.  "  Take  Bob 
with  you  and  drive  somewhere  into  the  country  and 
stay  till  this  thing  is  over."  Whether  my  admoni 
tion  and  reasoning  moved  him  or  not  I  do  not 
know,  but  it  only  remains  to  state  that  under  pre 
tence  of  having  business  in  Tazewell  county  he 
drove  out  of  town  in  his  buggy,  and  did  not  return 
till  the  apostles  of  Abolitionism  had  separated  and 
gone  to  their  homes.*  I  have  always  believed  this 
little  arrangement — it  would  dignify  it  too  much  to 
call  it  a  plan — saved  Lincoln.  If  he  had  endorsed 
the  resolutions  passed  at  the  meeting,  or  spoken 
simply  in  favor  of  freedom  that  night,  he  would 
have  been  identified  with  all  the  rancor  and  extremes 
of  Abolitionism.  If,  on  the  contrary,  he  had  been 
invited  to  join  them,  and  then  had  refused  to  take 
a  position  as  advanced  as  theirs,  he  would  have  lost 
their  support.  In  either  event  he  was  in  great  dan 
ger  ;  and  so  he  who  was  aspiring  to  succeed  his  old 
rival,  James  Shields,  in  the  United  States  Senate 
was  forced  to  avoid  the  issue  by  driving  hastily  in 
his  one  horse  buggy  to  the  court  in  Tazewell  county. 
A  singular  coincidence  suggests  itself  in  the  fact 
that,  twelve  years  before,  James  Shields  and  a  friend 
drove  hastily  in  the  same  direction,  and  destined  for 
the  same  point,  to  force  Lincoln  to  take  issue  in 
another  and  entirely  different  matter. 

*See    Lincoln's   Speech,   Joint  Debate,   Ottawa,   Ills.,  Aug.  20, 
1858. 


42  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

By  request  of  party  friends  Lincoln  was  induced 
to  follow  after  Douglas  and,  at  the  various  places 
where  the  latter  had  appointments  to  speak,  reply 
to  him.  On  the  i6th  of  October  they  met  at 
Peoria,  where  Douglas  enjoyed  the  advantages 
of  an  "open  and  close."  Lincoln  made  an  effec 
tive  speech,  which  he  wrote  out  and  furnished  to 
the  Sangamon  Journal  for  publication,  and  which  can 
be  found  among  his  public  utterances.  His  party 
friends  in  Springfield  and  elsewhere,  who  had  urged 
him  to  push  after  Douglas  till  he  cried,  "  enough," 
were  surprised  a  few  days  after  the  Peoria  debate 
to  find  him  at  home,  with  the  information  that  by 
an  agreement  with  the  latter  they  were  both  to 
return  home  and  speak  no  more  during  the  cam 
paign.  Judge  of  his  astonishment  a  few  days  later 
to  find  that  his  rival,  instead  of  going  direct  to  his 
home  in  Chicago,  had  stopped  at  Princeton  and 
violated  his  express  agreement  by  making  a  speech 
there!  Lincoln  was  much  displeased  at  this  action 
of  Douglas,  which  tended  to  convince  him  that  the 
latter  was  really  a  man  devoid  of  fixed  political  mor 
als.  I  remember  his  explanation  in  our  office  made 
to  me,  William  Butler,  William  Jayne,  Ben.  F. 
Irwin,  and  other  friends,  to  account  for  his  early 
withdrawal  from  the  stump.  After  the  Peoria  de 
bate  Douglas  approached  him  and  flattered  him  by 
saying  that  he  was  giving  him  more  trouble  on  the 
territorial  and  slavery  questions  than  all  the  United 
States  Senate,  and  he  therefore  proposed  to  him 
that  both  should  abandon  the  field  and  return  to 
their  homes.  Now  Lincoln  could  never  refuse  a 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  43 

polite  request — one  in  which  no  principle  was 
involved.  I  have  heard  him  say,  "  It's  a  fortu 
nate  thing  I  wasn't  born  a  woman,  for  I  cannot 
refuse  anything,  it  seems."  He  therefore  consented 
to  the  cessation  of  debate  proposed  by  Douglas,  and 
the  next  day  both  went  to  the  town  of  Lacon,  where 
they  had  been  billed  for  speeches.  Their  agree 
ment  was  kept  from  their  friends,  and  both  declined 
to  speak — Douglas,  on  the  ground  of  hoarseness, 
and  Lincoln  gallantly  refusing  to  take  advantage  of 
"Judge  Douglas's  indisposition."  Here  they  sep 
arated,  Lincoln  going  directly  home,  and  Douglas, 
as  before  related,  stopping  at  Princeton  and  collid 
ing  in  debate  with  Owen  Lovejoy.  Upon  being 
charged  afterwards  with  his  breach  of  agreement 
Douglas  responded  that  Lovejoy  "  bantered  and 
badgered  "  him  so  persistently  he  could  not  grace 
fully  resist  the  encounter.  The  whole  thing  thor 
oughly  displeased  Lincoln.* 

During  this  campaign  Lincoln  was  nominated  and 
elected  to  the  Legislature.  This  was  done  in  the 
face  of  his  unwillingness  and  over  his  protest.  On 


*  In  a  letter  from  Princeton,  111.,  March  15,  1866,  John  H.  Bryant, 
brother  of  the  poet  William  Cullen  Bryant,  writes:  "I  have  suc 
ceeded  in  finding  an  old  file  of  our  Princeton  papers,  from  which  I 
learn  that  Mr.  Douglas  spoke  here  on  Wednesday,  Oct.  18,  1854. 
This  fixes  the  date.  I  recollect  that  he  staid  at  Tiskilwa,  six  miles 
south  of  this,  the  night  before,  and  a  number  of  our  Democrats  went 
down  the  next  morning  and  escorted  him  to  this  place.  Douglas 
spoke  first  one  half -hour  and  was  answered  by  Lovejoy  one  half-hour, 
when  Douglas  talked  till  dark,  giving  no  opportunity  for  reply. 

"Yours  truly, 

"  JOHN  H.  BRYANT." 


44  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

the  ticket  with  him  was  Judge  Logan.  Both 
were  elected  by  a  majority  of  about  600  votes. 
Lincoln,  being  ambitious  to  reach  the  United  States 
Senate,  and  warmly  encouraged  in  his  aspirations 
by  his  wife,  resigned  his  seat  in  the  Legislature  in 
order  that  he  might  the  more  easily  be  elected 
to  succeed  his  old  rival  James  Shields,  who  was 
then  one  of  the  senators  from  Illinois.  His  canvass 
for  that  exalted  office  was  marked  by  his  character 
istic  activity  and  vigilance.  During  the  anxious 
moments  that  intervened  between  the  general  elec 
tion  and  the  assembling  of  the  Legislature  he  slept, 
like  Napoleon,  with  one  eye  open.  While  attending 
court  at  Clinton  on  the  nth  of  November,  a  few 
days  after  the  election,  he  wrote  to  a  party  friend  in 
the  town  of  Paris :  "  I  have  a  suspicion  that  a  Whig 
has  been  elected  to  the  Legislature  from  Edgar.  If 
this  is  not  so,  why  then,  '  nix  cum  arous; '  but  if  it  is 
so,  then  could  you  not  make  a  mark  with  him  for 
me  for  U.  S.  Senator?  I  really  have  some  chance. 
Please  write  me  at  Springfield  giving  me  the  names, 
post-offices,  and  political  positions  of  your  Repre 
sentative  and  Senator,  whoever  they  may  be.  Let 
this  be  confidential/'  * 

That  man  who  thinks  Lincoln  calmly  sat  down 
and  gathered  his  robes  about  him,  waiting  for  the 
people  to  call  him,  has  a  very  erroneous  knowl 
edge  of  Lincoln.  He  was  always  calculating,  and 
always  planning  ahead.  His  ambition  was  a  little 
engine  that  knew  no  rest.  The  vicissitudes  of  a 

*  Robert  Mosely,  November  n,  1855,  MS. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  45 

political  campaign  brought  into  play  all  his  tact  and 
management  and  developed  to  its  fullest  extent  his 
latent  industry.!  -In  common  with  other  politicians 
he  never  overlooked  a  newspaper  man  who  had  it  in 
his  power  to  say  a  good  or  bad  thing  of  him.  The 
press  of  that  day  was  not  so  powerful  an  institution 
as  now,  but  ambitious  politicians  courted  the  favor 
of  a  newspaper  man  with  as  much  zeal  as  the  same 
class  of  men  have  done  in  later  days.  I  remember  a 
letter  Lincoln  once  wrote  to  the  editor  of  an  obscure 
little  country  newspaper  in  southern  Illinois  in 
which  he  warms  up  to  him  in  the  following  style.* 
"  Friend  Harding :  I  have  been  reading  your  paper 
for  three  or  four  years  and  have  paid  you  nothing  for 
it."  He  then  encloses  ten  dollars  and  admonishes 
the  editor  with  innocent  complacency :  "  Put  it  into 
your  pocket,  saying  nothing  further  about  it."  Very 
soon  thereafter,  he  prepared  an  article  on  political 
matters  and  sent  it  to  the  rural  journalist,  request 
ing  its  publication  in  the  editorial  columns  of  his 
"  valued  paper,"  but  the  latter,  having  followed  Lin 
coln's  directions  and  stowed  the  ten  dollars  away 
in  his  pocket,  and  alive  to  the  importance  of  his 
journal's  influence,  declined,  "  because,"  he  said,  "  I 
long  ago  made  it  a  rule  to  publish  nothing  as  edi 
torial  matter  not  written  by  myself."  Lincoln  read 
the  editor's  answer  to  me.  Although  the  laugh  was 
on  Lincoln  he  enjoyed  the  joke  heartily.  "  That 
editor,"  he  said,  "  has  a  rather  lofty  but  proper  con 
ception  of  true  journalism." 

*  Jacob  Harding,  May  25,  1855,  MS. 


46  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

Meanwhile  the  Legislature  had  convened  and  the 
Senatorial  question  came  on  for  solution.  The 
history  of  this  contest  is  generally  understood,  and 
the  world  has  repeatedly  been  told  how  Lincoln 
was  led  to  expect  the  place  and  would  have  won 
but  for  the  apostasy  of  the  five  anti-Nebraska  men 
of  Democratic  antecedents  who  clung  to  and 
finally  forced  the  election  of  Lyman  Trumbull. 
The  student  of  history  in  after  years  will  be 
taught  to  revere  the  name  of  Lincoln  for  his 
exceeding  magnanimity  in  inducing  his  friends 
to  abandon  him  at  the  critical  period  and  save 
Trumbull,  while  he  himself  disappeared  beneath  the 
waves  of  defeat.* 

This    frustration    of    Lincoln's    ambition   had    a 

*  "After  a  number  of  ballots — Judd  of  Cook,  Cook  of  La  Salle, 
Palmer  of  Macoupin,  and  Allen  and  Baker  of  Madison  voting  for 
Trumbull — I  asked  Mr.  Lincoln  what  he  would  advise  us  to  do.  He 
answered,  'Go  for  Trumbull  by  all  means.'  We  understood  the  case 
to  be  that  Shields  was  to  be  run  by  the  Democrats  at  first  and  then 
to  be  dropped,  and  Joel  A.  Matteson  put  up;  and  it  was  calculated 
that  certain  of  our  men  who  had  been  elected  on  the  'Free  Soil' 
issue  would  vote  for  him  after  they  had  acted  with  us  long  enough 
to  satisfy  their  consciences  and  constituents.  Our  object  was  to 
force  an  election  before  they  got  through  with  their  programme.  We 
were  savagely  opposed  to  Matteson,  and  so  was  Mr.  Lincoln,  who 
said  that  if  we  did  not  drop  in  and  unite  upon  Trumbull  the  five 
men  above-named  would  go  for  Matteson  and  elect  him,  which  would 
be  an  everlasting  disgrace  to  the  State.  We  reluctantly  complied; 
went  to  Trumbull  and  elected  him.  I  remember  that  Judge  S.  T. 
Logan  gave  up  Lincoln  with  great  reluctance.  He  begged  hard  to 
try  him  on  one  or  two  ballots  more,  but  Mr.  Lincoln  urged  us  not  to 
risk  it  longer.  I  never  saw  the  latter  more  earnest  and  decided.  He 
congratulated  Trumbull  warmly,  although  of  course  greatly  disap 
pointed  and  mortified  at  his  own  want  of  success/" — )osepn  Gillespier 
letter,  September  19,  1866,  MS. 


LYMAN  TRUMBULL. 

Photographed  in  1891. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  47 

marked  effect  on  his  political  views.  It  was  plain 
to  him  now  that  the  "  irrepressible  conflict "  was 
not  far  ahead.  With  the  strengthening  of  his  faith 
in  a  just  cause  so  long  held  in  abeyance  he  became 
more  defiant  each  day.  But  in  the  very  nature  of 
things  he  dared  not  be  as  bold  and  outspoken  as  I. 
With  him  every  word  and  sentence  had  to  be 
weighed  and  its  effects  calculated,  before  being 
uttered:  but  with  me  that  operation  had  to  be 
reversed  if  done  at  all.  An  incident  that  occurred 
about  this  time  will  show  how  his  views  were  broad 
ening.  Some  time  after  the  election  of  Trumbull  a 
young  negro,  the  son  of  a  colored  woman  in  Spring 
field  known  as  Polly,  went  from  his  home  to  St. 
Louis  and  there  hired  as  a  hand  on  a  lower  Missis 
sippi  boat, — for  what  special  service,  I  do  not  recol 
lect, — arriving  in  New  Orleans  without  what  were 
known  as  free  papers.  Though  born  free  he  was 
subjected  to  the  tyranny  of  the  "black  code,"  all 
the  more  stringent  because  of  the  recent  utterances 
of  the  Abolitionists  in  the  North,  and  was  kept  in 
prison  until  his  boat  had  left.  Then,  as  no  one  was 
especially  interested  in  him,  he  was  forgotten.  After 
a  certain  length  of  time  established  by  law,  he  would 
inevitably  have  been  sold  into  slavery  to  defray  pris 
on  expenses  had  not  Lincoln  and  I  interposed  our 
aid.  The  mother  came  to  us  with  the  story  of  the 
wrong  done  her  son  and  induced  us  to  interfere  in 
her  behalf.  We  went  first  to  see  the  Governor  of  Illi 
nois,  who,  after  patient  and  thorough  examination  of 
the  law,  responded  that  he  had  no  right  or  power  to 
interfere.  Recourse  was  then  had  to  the  Governor 


48  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

of  Louisiana,  who  responded  in  like  manner.  We 
were  sorely  perplexed.  A  second  interview  with  the 
Governor  of  Illinois  resulting  in  nothing  favorable 
Lincoln  rose  from  his  chair,  hat  in  hand,  and  ex 
claimed  with  some  emphasis :  "  By  God,  Governor, 
I'll  make  the  ground  in  this  country  too  hot  for  the 
foot  of  a  slave,  whether  you  have  the  legal  power  to 
secure  the  release  of  this  boy  or  not."  Having  ex 
hausted  all  legal  means  to  recover  the  negro  we 
dropped  our  relation  as  lawyers  to  the  case.  Lin 
coln  drew  up  a  subscription-list,  which  I  circulated, 
collecting  funds  enough  to  purchase  the  young  man's 
liberty.  The  money  we  sent  to  Col.  A.  P.  Fields,  a 
friend  of  ours  in  New  Orleans,  who  applied  it  as 
directed,  and  it  restored  the  prisoner  to  his  over 
joyed  mother. 

The  political  history  of  the  country,  commencing 
in  1854  and  continuing  till  the  outbreak  of  the  Re 
bellion,  furnishes  the  student  a  constant  succes 
sion  of  stirring  and  sometimes  bloody  scenes.  No 
sooner  had  Lincoln  emerged  from  the  Senatorial 
contest  in  February,  1855,  and  absorbed  himself  in 
the  law,  than  the  outrages  on  the  borders  of  Mis 
souri  and  Kansas  began  to  arrest  public  attention. 
The  stories  of  raids,  election  frauds,  murders,  and 
other  crimes  were  moving  eastward  with  marked  ra 
pidity.  These  outbursts  of  frontier  lawlessness,  led 
and  sanctioned  by  the  avowed  pro-slavery  element, 
were  not  only  stirring  up  the  Abolitionists  to  fever 
heat,  but  touching  the  hearts  of  humanity  in  general. 
In  Illinois  an  association  was  formed  to  aid  the  cause 
of  "  Free-Soil  "  men  in  Kansas.  In  the  meetings  of 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  49 

these  bands  the  Abolitionists  of  course  took  the 
most  prominent  part.  At  Springfield  we  were  en 
ergetic,  vigilant,  almost  revolutionary.  We  recom 
mended  the  employment  of  any  means,  however 
desperate,  to  promote  and  defend  the  cause  of  free 
dom.  At  one  of  these  meetings  Lincoln  was  called 
on  for  a  speech.  He  responded  to  the  request, 
counselling  moderation  and  less  bitterness  in  deal 
ing  with  the  situation  before  us.  We  were  bel 
ligerent  in  tone,  and  clearly  out  of  patience  with 
the  Government.  Lincoln  opposed  the  notion  of 
coercive  measures  with  the  possibility  of  resulting 
bloodshed,  advising  us  to  eschew  resort  to  the  bullet. 
"  You  can  better  succeed,"  he  declared,  "  with  the 
ballot.  You  can  peaceably  then  redeem  the  Gov 
ernment  and  preserve  the  liberties  of  mankind 
through  your  votes  and  voice  and  moral  influence. 
....  Let  there  be  peace.  Revolutionize  through 
the  ballot  box,  and  restore  the  Government  once 
more  to  the  affections  and  hearts  of  men  by  making 
it  express,  as  it  was  intended  to  do,  the  highest  spirit 
of  justice  and  liberty.  Your  attempt,  if  there  be 
such,  to  resist  the  laws  of  Kansas  by  force  is  crimi 
nal  and  wicked ;  and  all  your  feeble  attempts  will  be 
follies  and  end  in  bringing  sorrow  on  your  heads  and 
ruin  the  cause  you  would  freely  die  to  preserve ! " 
These  judicious  words  of  counsel,  while  they  reduced 
somewhat  our  ardor  and  our  desperation,  only  placed 
before  us  in  their  real  colors  the  grave  features  of 
the  situation.  We  raised  a  neat  sum  of  money, 
Lincoln  showing  his  sincerity  by  joining  in  the  sub 
scription,  and  forwarded  it  to  our  friends  in  Kansas. 


50  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

The  Whig  party,  having  accomplished  its  mission 
in  the  political  world,  was  now  on  the  eve  of  a 'great 
break-up.  Lincoln  realized  this  and,  though  pro 
verbially  slow  in  his  movements,  prepared  to  find  a 
firm  footing  when  the  great  rush  of  waters  should 
come  and  the  maddening  freshet  sweep  former 
landmarks  out  of  sight.  Of  the  strongest  signifi 
cance  in  this  connection  is  a  letter  written  by  him 
at  this  juncture  to  an  old  friend  in  Kentucky,*  who 
called  to  his  attention  their  differences  of  views  on 
the  wrong  of  slavery.  Speaking  of  his  observation 
of  the  treatment  of  the  slaves,  he  says :  "  I  confess 
I  hate  to  see  the  poor  creatures  hunted  down  and 
caught  and  carried  back  to  their  unrequited  toils; 
but  I  bite  my  lips  and  keep  quiet.  In  1841  you 
and  I  had  rather  a  tedious  low-water  trip  on  a 
steamboat  from  Louisville  to  St.  Louis.  You  may 
remember,  as  I  well  do,  that  from  Louisville  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Ohio,  there  were  on  board  ten  or  a 
dozen  slaves  shackled  together  with  irons.  That 
sight  was  a  continued  torment  to  me;  and  I  see 
something  like  it  every  time  I  touch  the  Ohio  or 
any  slave  border.  It  is  not  fair  for  you  to  assume 
that  I  have  no  interest  in  a  thing  which  has,  and 
continually  exercises,  the  power  of  making  me  mis 
erable.  You  ought  rather  to  appreciate  how  much 
the  great  body  of  the  Northern  people  do  crucify 
their  feelings  in  order  to  maintain  their  loyalty  to 
the  Constitution  and  the  Union.  I  do  oppose  the 
extension  of  slavery  because  my  judgment  and  feel- 

*  Letter  to  Joshua  F.  Speed,  August  24,  1855,  MS. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  5I 

ing  so  prompt  me ;  and  I  am  under  no  obligations  to 
the  contrary.  If  for  this  you  and  I  must  differ, 
differ  we  must." 

Finding  himself  drifting  about  with  the  disorgan 
ized  elements  that  floated  together  after  the  angry 
political  waters  had  subsided,  it  became  apparent  to 
Lincoln  that  if  he  expected  to  figure  as  a  leader  he 
must  take  a  stand  himself.  Mere  hatred  of  slavery 
and  opposition  to  the  injustice  of  the  Kansas-Ne 
braska  legislation  were  not  all  that  were  required  of 
him.  He  must  be  a  Democrat,  Know-Nothing, 
Abolitionist,  or  Republican,  or  forever  float  about  in 
the  great  political  sea  without  compass,  rudder,  or 
sail.  At  length  he  declared  himself.  Believing  the 
times  were  ripe  for  more  advanced  movements,  in 
the  spring  of  1856  I  drew  up  a  paper  for  the  friends 
of  freedom  to  sign,  calling  a  county  convention  in 
Springfield  to  select  delegates  for  the  forthcoming 
Republican  State  convention  in  Bloomington.  The 
paper  was  freely  circulated  and  generously  signed. 
Lincoln  was  absent  at  the  time  and,  believing  I 
knew  what  his  "  feeling  and  judgment "  on  the  vital 
questions  of  the  hour  were,  I  took  the  liberty  to 
sign  his  name  to  the  call.  The  whole  was  then  pub 
lished  in  the  Springfield  Journal.  No  sooner 
had  it  appeared  than  John  T.  Stuart,  who,  with 
others,  was  endeavoring  to  retard  Lincoln  in  his 
advanced  movements,  rushed  into  the  office  and 
excitedly  asked  if  "  Lincoln  had  signed  that  Abo 
lition  call  in  the  Journal?  "  I  answered  in  the  neg 
ative,  adding  that  I  had  signed  his  name  myself. 
To  the  question,  "  Did  Lincoln  authorize  you  to 


52  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

sign  it?"  I  returned  an  emphatic  "  No."  "Then," 
exclaimed  the  startled  and  indignant  Stuart,  "  you 
have  ruined  him."  But  I  was  by  no  means  alarmed 
at  what  others  deemed  inconsiderate  and  hasty 
action.  I  thought  I  understood  Lincoln  thoroughly, 
but  in  order  to  vindicate  myself  if  assailed  I  imme 
diately  sat  down,  after  Stuart  had  rushed  out  of  the 
office,  and  wrote  Lincoln,  who  was  then  in  Tazewell 
County  attending  court,  a  brief  account  of  what  I 
had  done  and  how  much  stir  it  was  creating  in  the 
ranks  of  his  conservative  friends.  If  he  approved 
or  disapproved  my  course  I  asked  him  to  write  or 
telegraph  me  at  once.  In  a  brief  time,  came  his 
answer :  "  All  right ;  go  ahead.  Will  meet  you — 
radicals  and  all."  Stuart  subsided,  and  the  cofi- 
servative  spirits  who  hovered  around  Springfield 
no  longer  held  control  of  the  political  fortunes  of 
Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  Republican  party  came  into  existence  in 
Illinois  as  a  party  at  Bloomington,  May  29,  1856. 
The  State  convention  of  all  opponents  of  anti- 
Nebraska  legislation,  referred  to  in  a  foregoing  para 
graph,  had  been  set  for  that  day.  Judd,  Yates, 
Trumbull,  Swett,  and  Davis  were  there ;  so  also  was 
Lovejoy,  who,  like  Otis  of  colonial  fame,  was  a  flame 
of  fire.  The  firm  of  Lincoln  and  Herndon  was  rep 
resented  by  both  members  in  person.  The  gallant 
William  H.  Bissell,  who  had  ridden  at  the  head  of 
the  Second  Illinois  Regiment  at  the  battle  of  Buena 
Vista  in  the  Mexican  war,  was  nominated  as  gov 
ernor.  The  convention  adopted  a  platform  ringing 
with  strong  anti-Nebraska  sentiments,  and  then  and 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  53 

there  gave  the  Republican  party  its  official  christ 
ening.  The  business  of  the  convention  being  over, 
Mr.  Lincoln,  in  response  to  repeated  calls,  came 
forward  and  delivered  a  speech  of  such  earnest 
ness  and  power  that  no  one  who  heard  it  will  ever 
forget  the  effect  it  produced.  In  referring  to  this 
speech  some  years  ago  I  used  the  following  rather 
graphic  language :  "  I  have  heard  or  read  all  of  Mr.l 
Lincoln's  great  speeches,  and  I  give  it  as  my3 
opinion  that  the  Bloomington  speech  was  the 
grand  effort  of  his  life.  ^Heretofore  he  had 
simply  argued  the  slavery  question  on  grounds 
of  policy, — the  statesman's  grounds, — never  reach 
ing  the  question  of  the  radical  and  the  eternal 
right.  Now  he  was  newly  baptized  and  freshly 
born ;  he  had  the  fervor  of  a  new  convert ;  the 
smothered  flame  broke  out ;  enthusiasm  unusual  to 
him  blazed  up;  his  eyes  were  aglow  with  an  inspir 
ation  ;  he  felt  justice ;  his  heart  was  alive  to  the 
right;  his  sympathies,  remarkably  deep  for  him, 
burst  forth,"  arnd  he  stood  before  the  throne  of  the 
eternal  Right.  His  speech  was  full  of  fire  and 
energy  and  force;  it  was  logic;  it  was  pathos;  it 
was  enthusiasm ;  it  was  justice,  equity,  truth,  and 
right  set  ablaze  by  the  divine  fires  of  a  soul  mad 
dened  by  the  wrong;  it  was  hard,  heavy,  knotty, 
gnarly,  backed  with  wrath.  I  attempted  for  about 
fifteen  minutes  as  was  usual  with  me  then  to  take 
notes,  but  at  the  end  of  that  time  I  threw  pen  and 
paper  away  and  lived  only  in  the  inspiration  of  the 
hour.  If  Mr.  Lincoln  was  six  feet  four  inches  high 
usually,  at  Bloomington  that  day  he  was  seven  feet, 


54  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

and  inspired  at  that.  From  that  day  to  the  day  of 
his  death  he  stood  firm  in  the  right.  He  felt  his 
great  cross,  had  his  great  idea,  nursed  it,  kept  it, 
taught  it  to  others,  in  his  fidelity  bore  witness 
of  it  to  his  death,  and  finally  sealed  it  with  his 
precious  blood."  The  foregoing  paragraph,  used  by 
me  in  a  lecture  in  1866,  may  to  the  average  reader 
seem  somewhat  vivid  in  description,  besides  inclin 
ing  to  extravagance  in  imagery,  yet  although  more 
than  twenty  years  have  passed  since  it  was  written 
I  have  never  seen  the  need  of  altering  a  single  sen 
tence.  I  still  adhere  to  the  substantial  truthfulness 
of  the  scene  as  described.  Unfortunately  Lincoln's 
speech  was  never  written  out  nor  printed,  and  we 
are  obliged  to  depend  for  its  reproduction  upon  per 
sonal  recollection. 

The  Bloomington  convention  and  the  part  Lin 
coln  took  in  it  met  no  such  hearty  response  in 
Springfield  as  we  hoped  would  follow.  It  fell  flat, 
and  in  Lincoln's  case  drove  from  him  many  per 
sons  who  had  heretofore  been  his  warm  political 
friends.  A  few  days  after  our  return  we  announced 
a  meeting  at  the  court-house  to  ratify  the  action 
of  the  Bloomington  convention.  After  the  usual 
efforts  to  draw  a  crowd,  however,  only  three  persons 
had  temerity  enough  to  attend.  They  were  Lin 
coln,  the  writer,  and  a  courageous  man  named  John 
Pain.  Lincoln,  in  answer  to  the  "  deafening  calls  " 
for  a  speech,  responded  that  the  meeting  was  larger 
than  he  knew  it  would  be,  and  that  while  he  knew 
that  he  himself  and  his  partner  would  attend  he 
was  not  sure  any  one  else  would,  and  yet  another 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  55 

man  had  been  found  brave  enough  to  come  out. 
"  While  all  seems  dead,"  he  exhorted,  "  the  age  it 
self  is  not.  It  liveth  as  sure  as  our  Maker  liveth. 
Under  all  this  seeming  want  of  life  and  motion,  the 
world  does  move  nevertheless.  Be  hopeful,  and 
now  let  us  adjourn  and  appeal  to  the  people." 

Not  only  in  Springfield  but  everywhere  else  the 
founders  of  the  Republican  party — the  apostles  of 
freedom — went  out  to  battle  for  the  righteousness 
of  their  cause.  Lincoln,  having  as  usual  been  named 
as  one  of  the  Presidential  electors,  canvassed  the 
State,  making  in  all  about  fifty  speeches.  He  was 
in  demand  everywhere.  I  have  before  me  a  pack 
age  of  letters  addressed  to  him,  inviting  him  to 
speak  at  almost  every  county  seat  in  the  State. 
Yates  wanted  him  to  go  to  one  section  of  the  State, 
Washburne  to  another,  and  Trumbull  still  another ; 
while  every  cross-roads  politician  and  legislative 
aspirant  wanted  him  "  down  in  our  country,  where 
we  need  your  help."  Joshua  R.  Giddings  wrote 
him  words  of  encouragement.  "  You  may  start," 
said  the  valiant  old  Abolitionist  in  a  letter  from 
Peoria,*  "on  the  one  great  issue  of  restoring 
Kansas  and  Nebraska  to  freedom,  or  rather  of 
restoring  the  Missouri  Compromise, and  in  this  State 
no  power  on  earth  can  withstand  you  on  that  issue." 
The  demand  for  Lincoln  was  not  confined  to  his 
own  State.  Indiana  sent  for  him,  Wisconsin  also, 
while  Norman  B.  Judd  and  Ebenezer  Peck,  who 
were  stumping  Iowa,  sent  for  him  to  come  there. 


*  J.  R.  Giddings,  MS.  letter,  Sept.  18, 1855. 
28 


56  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

A  town  committee  invited  him  to  come  during 
"our  Equestrian  Fair  on  the  Qth,  loth,  and  nth," 
evidently  anticipating  a  three  days'  siege.  An 
enthusiastic  officer  in  a  neighboring  town  urges 
him :  "  Come  to  our  place,  because  in  you  do  our 
people  place  more  confidence  than  in  any  other 
man.  Men  who  do  not  read  want  the  story  told 
as  you  only  can  tell  it.  Others  may  make  fine 
speeches,  but  it  would  not  be  '  Lincoln  said  so  in 
his  speech/  "  A  jubilant  friend  in  Chicago  writes: 
"  Push  on  the  column  of  freedom.  Give  the  Buck 
Africans  plenty  to  do  in  Egypt.  The  hour  of  our 
redemption  draweth  nigh.  We  are  coming  to 
Springfield  with  20,000  majority!"  A  postmaster, 
acting  under  the  courage  of  his  convictions, 
implores  him  to  visit  his  neighborhood.  "  The 
Democrats  here,"  he  insists,  "  are  dyed  in  the  wool. 
Thunder  and  lightning  would  not  change  their 
political  complexion.  I  am  postmaster  here,"  he 
adds,  confidentially,  "  for  which  reason  I  must  ask 
you  to  keep  this  private,  for  if  old  Frank  [President 
Pierce]  were  to  hear  of  my  support  of  Fremont  I 
would  get  my  walking  papers  sure  enough."  A 
settlement  of  Germans  in  southern  Indiana  asked  to 
hear  him ;  and  the  president  of  a  college,  in  an  invi 
tation  to  address  the  students  under  his  charge, 
characterizes  him  as  "  one  providentially  raised  up 
for  a  time  like  this,  and  even  should  defeat  come  in 
the  contest,  it  would  be  some  consolation  to  remem 
ber  we  had  Hector  for  a  leader." 

And  thus  it  was  everywhere.     Lincoln's  impor 
tance  in  the  conduct  of  the  campaign  was  appar- 


THE,  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  57 

ent  to  all,  and  his  canvass  was  characterized  by  his 
usual  vigor  and  effectiveness.  He  was  especially 
noted  for  his  attempt  to  break  down  the  strength 
of  Fillmore,  who  was  nominated  as  a  third  party 
candidate  and  was  expected  to  divide  the  Repub 
lican  vote.  He  tried  to  wean  away  Fillmore's 
adherents  by  an  adroit  and  ingenious  letter  *  sent 

*  One  of  these  letters  which  Lincoln  wrote  to  counteract  the 
Fillmore  movement  is  still  in  my  possession.  As  it  is  more  or  less 
characteristic  I  copy  it  entire: 

"SPRINGFIELD,  September  8.  i8<:6. 
"HARRISON  MALTBY,  Esq. 

"Dear  Sir: 

"I  understand  you  are  a  Fillmore  man.  Let  me  prove  to 
you  that  every  vote  withheld  from  Fre"mont  and  given  to  Fillmore  in 
this  State  actually  lessens  Fillmore's  chance  of  being  President. 

"  Suppose  Buchanan  gets  all  the  slave  States  and  Pennsylvania  and 
any  other  one  State  besides;  then  he  is  elected,  no  matter  who  gets 
all  the  rest.  But  suppose  Fillmore  gets  the  two  slave  States  of  Mary 
land  and  Kentucky,  then  Buchanan  is  not  elected;  Fillmore  goes 
into  the  House  of  Representatives  and  may  be  made  President  by  a 
compromise.  But  suppose  again  Fillmore's  friends  throw  away  a 
few  thousand  votes  on  him  in  Indiana  and  Illinois;  it  will  inevita 
bly  give  these  States  to  Buchanan,  which  will  more  than  compensate 
him  for  the  loss  of  Maryland  and  Kentucky;  it  will  elect  him,  and 
leave  Fillmore  no  chance  in  the  House  of  Representatives  or  out  of  it. 

"This  is  as  plain  as  adding  up  the  weight  of  three  small  hogs.  As 
Mr.  Fillmore  has  no  possible  chance  to  carry  Illinois  for  himself  it 
is  plainly  to  his  interest  to  let  Fremont  take  it  and  thus  keep  it  out 
of  the  hands  of  Buchanan.  Be  not  deceived.  Buchanan  is  the  hard 
horse  to  beat  in  this  race.  Let  him  have  Illinois,  and  nothing  can 
beat  him;  and  he  will  get  Illinois  if  men  persist  in  throwing  away 
votes  upon  Mr.  Fillmore.  Does  some  one  persuade  you  that  Mr.  Fill- 
more  can  carry  Illinois?  Nonsense!  There  are  over  seventy  news 
papers  in  Illinois  opposing  Buchanan,  only  three  or  four  of  which 
support  Mr.  Fillmore,  all  the  rest  going  for  Fremont.  Are  not  these 
newspapers  a  fair  index  of  the  proportion  of  the  votes?  If  not,  tell 
me  why. 

"Again,  of  these  three  or  four  Fillmore  newspapers,  two  at  least 
are  supported  in  part  by  the  Buchanan  men,  as  I  understand.  Do  not 
they  know  where  the  shoe  pinches?  They  know  the  Fillmore  move 
ment  helps  them,  and  therefore  they  help  it. 

"Do  think  these  things  over  and  then  act  according  to  your  judg 
ment.  "Yours  very  truly, 

[Confidential.]  "A.  LINCOLN." 


S8  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

to  those  suspected  of  the  latter's  support,  and 
marked  confidential,  in  which  he  strove  to  show  that 
in  clinging  to  their  candidate  they  were  really 
aiding  the  election  of  Buchanan.  But  the  effort 
proved  unavailing,  for  in  spite  of  all  his  arguments 
and  appeals  a  large  number  of  the  Fillmore  men 
clung  tenaciously  to  their  leader,  resulting  in  Bu 
chanan's  election.  The  vote  in  Illinois  stood,  Bu 
chanan  105,344,  Fremont  96,180,  and  Fillmore  37,- 
451.  At  the  same  time  Bissell  was  elected  governor 
by  a  majority  of  4729  over  W.  A.  Richardson,  Demo 
crat.  After  the  heat  and  burden  of  the  day  Lincoln 
returned  home,  bearing  with  him  more  and  greater 
laurels  than  ever.  The  signs  of  the  times  indicated, 
and  the  result  of  the  canvass  demonstrated,  that  he 
and  he  alone  was  powerful  enough  to  meet  the  re 
doubtable  Little  Giant  in  a  greater  conflict  yet  to 
follow. 


CHAPTER  III. 

I  SHALL  be  forced  to  omit  much  that  happened 
during  the  interval  between  the  election  of  Bu 
chanan  and  the  campaign  of  1858,  for  the  reason  that 
it  would  not  only  swell  this  work  to  undue  propor 
tions,  but  be  a  mere  repetition  of  what  has  been  bet 
ter  told  by  other  writers.  It  is  proper  to  note  in 
passing,  however,  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  reputation  as  a 
political  speaker  was  no  longer  bounded  by  the 
border  lines  of  Illinois.  It  had  passed  beyond  the 
Wabash,  the  Ohio,  and  the  Mississippi  rivers,  and 
while  his  pronounced  stand  on  the  slavery  question 
had  increased  the  circle  of  his  admirers  in  the  North 
it  provoked  a  proportionate  amount  of  execration  in 
the  South.  He  could  not  help  the  feeling  that  he 
was  now  the  leading  Republican  in  his  State,  and  he 
was  therefore  more  or  less  jealous  of  his  prerogative. 
Formidable  in  debate,  plain  in  speech,  without  pre 
tence  of  literary  acquirements,  he  was  none  the  less 
self-reliant.  He  already  envied  the  ascendancy 
and  domination  Douglas  exercised  over  his  follow 
ers,  and  felt  keenly  the  slight  given  him  by  others 
of  his  own  faith  whom  he  conceived  were  disposed 
to  prevent  his  attaining  the  leadership  of  his  party. 
I  remember  early  in  1858  of  his  coming  into  the 
office  one  morning  and  speaking  in  very  dejected 

59 


60  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

terms  of  the  treatment  he  was  receiving  at  the 
hands  of  Horace  Greeley.  "  I  think  Greeley,"  he 
complained,  "  is  not  doing  me  right.  His  conduct,  I 
believe,  savors  a  little  of  injustice.  I  am  a  true 
Republican  and  have  been  tried  already  in  the  hot 
test  part  of  the  anti-slavery  fight,  and  yet  I  find  him 
taking  up  Douglas,  a  veritable  dodger, — once  a  tool 
of  the  South,  now  its  enemy, — and  pushing  him  to 
the  front.  He  forgets  that  when  he  does  that  he 
pulls  me  down  at  the  same  time.  I  fear  Greeley's 
attitude  will  damage  me  with  Sumner,  Seward,  Wil 
son,  Phillips,  and  other  friends  in  the  East."  This 
was  said  with  so  much  of  mingled  sadness  and  ear 
nestness  that  I  was  deeply  impressed.  Lincoln  was 
gloomy  and  restless  the  entire  day.  Greeley's  let 
ters  were  driving  the  enthusiasm  out  of  him.*  He 
seemed  unwilling  to  attend  to  any  business,  and 
finally,  just  before  noon,  left  the  office,  going  over 
to  the  United  States  Court  room  to  play  a  game  of 
chess  with  Judge  Treat,  and  did  not  return  again 

*  Greeley's  letters  were  very  pointed  and  sometimes  savage.  Here 
is  one: 

"I  have  not  proposed  to  instruct  the  Republicans  of  Illinois  in 
their  political  duties,  and  I  doubt  very  much  that  even  so  much  as  is 
implied  in  your  letter  can  be  fairly  deduced  from  anything  I  have 
written.  Now  let  me  make  one  prediction.  If  you  run  a  candidate 
[for  Congress]  against  Harris  and  he  is  able  to  canvass  he  will  beat 
you  badly.  He  is  more  of  a  man  at  heart  and  morally  than  Douglas, 
and  has  gone  into  this  fight  with  more  earnestness  and  less  calcula 
tion.  Of  the  whole  Douglas  party  he  is  the  truest  and  best.  I 
never  spoke  a  dozen  words  with  him  in  my  life,  having  met  him  but 
once,  but  if  I  lived  in  his  district  I  should  vote  for  him.  As  I  have 
never  spoken  of  him  in  my  paper,  and  suppose  I  never  shall,  I  take 
the  liberty  to  say  this  much  to  you.  Now  paddle  your  own  dug-out! 

"Yours, 

"HORACE  GREELEY." 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  fa 

that  day.  I  pondered  a  good  deal  over  Lincoln's 
dejection,  and  that  night,  after  weighing  the  matter 
well  in  mind,  resolved  to  go  to  the  eastern  States 
myself  and  endeavor  to  sound  some  of  the  great  men 
there.  The  next  day,  on  apprising  Lincoln  of  my 
determination,  he  questioned  its  propriety.  Our 
relations,  he  insisted,  were  so  intimate  that  a  wrong 
construction  might  be  put  upon  the  movement.  I 
listened  carefully  to  him,  but  as  I  had  never  been 
beyond  the  Alleghanies  I  packed  my  valise  and 
went,  notwithstanding  his  objections.  I  had  been 
in  correspondence  on  my  own  account  with  Greeley, 
Seward,  Sumner,  Phillips,  and  others  for  several 
years,  had  kept  them  informed  of  the  feelings  of  our 
people  and  the  political  campaigns  in  their  various 
stages,  but  had  never  met  any  of  them  save 
Greeley.  I  enjoyed  heartily  the  journey  and  the 
varied  sights  and  scenes  that  attended  it.  Aside 
from  my  mission,  the  trip  was  a  great  success.  The 
magnificent  buildings,  the  display  of  wealth  in  the 
large  cities  and  prosperous  manufacturing  towns, 
broadened  the  views  of  one  whose  vision  had  never 
extended  beyond  the  limits  of  the  Illinois  prairies. 
In  Washington  I  saw  and  dined  with  Trumbull,  who 
went  over  the  situation  with  me.  Trumbull  had 
written  to  Lincoln  shortly  before  *  that  he  thought 
it  "  useless  to  speculate  upon  the  further  course  of 
Douglas  or  the  effect  it  is  to  have  in  Illinois  or 
other  States.  He  himself  does  not  know  where  he 
is  going  or  where  he  will  come  out."  At  my  inter 
view  with  Trumbull,  however,  he  directed  me  to 

*  Letter,  December  25,  1857,  MS. 


62  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

assure  Mr.  Lincoln  that  Douglas  did  not  mean  to 
join  the  Republican  party,  however  great  the  breach 
between  himself  and  the  administration  might  be. 
"  We  Republicans  here,"  he  said  exultingly  in  an 
other  letter  to  Lincoln,  "  are  in  good  spirits,  and 
are  standing  back  to  let  the  fight  go  on  between 
Douglas  and  his  former  associates.  Lincoln  will 
lose  nothing  by  this  if  he  can  keep  the  attention  of 
our  Illinois  people  from  being  diverted  from  the 
great  and  vital  question  of  the  day  to  the  minor 
and  temporary  issues  which  are  now  being  dis 
cussed."  *  In  Washington  I  saw  also  Seward,  Wil 
son,  and  others  of  equal  prominence.  Douglas 
was  confined  to  his  house  by  illness,  but  on  receiv 
ing  my  card  he  directed  me  to  be  shown  up  to  his 
room.  We  had  a  pleasant  and  interesting  inter 
view.  Of  course  the  conversation  soon  turned  on 
Lincoln.  In  answer  to  an  inquiry  regarding  the  lat 
ter  I  remarked  that  Lincoln  was  pursuing  the  even 
tenor  of  his  way.  "  He  is  not  in  anybody's  way," 
I  contended,  "  not  even  in  yours,  Judge  Douglas." 
He  was  sitting  up  in  a  chair  smoking  a  cigar.  Be 
tween  puffs  he  responded  that  neither  was  he  in 
the  way  of  Lincoln  or  any  one  else,  and  did  not 
intend  to  invite  conflict.  He  conceived  that  he  had 
achieved  what  he  had  set  out  to  do,  and  hence  did 
not  feel  that  his  course  need  put  him  in  opposi 
tion  to  Mr.  Lincoln  or  his  party.  "  Give  Mr.  Lin 
coln  my  regards,"  he  said,  rather  warmly,  "  when 
you  return,  and  tell  him  I  have  crossed  the  river  and 

*  Letter,  December  27,  1857,  MS. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  63 

burned  my  boat."  Leaving  Washington,  my  next 
point  was  New  York,  where  I  met  the  editor  of 
the  Anti-Slavery  Standard,  Horace  Greeley,  Henry 
Ward  Beecher,  and  others.  I  had  a  long  talk  with 
Greeley,  who,  I  noticed,  leaned  towards  Douglas.  I 
found,  however,  he  was  not  at  all  hostile  to  Lincoln. 
I  presented  the  latter's  case  in  the  best  phase  I  knew 
how,  but  while  I  drew  but  little  from  him,  I  left 
feeling  that  he  hadn't  been  entirely  won  over.  He 
introduced  me  to  Beecher,  who,  as  everybody  else 
did,  inquired  after  Lincoln  and  through  me  sent 
him  words  of  encouragement  and  praise.*  From 
New  York  I  went  to  Boston,  and  from  the  latter 
place  I  wrote  Lincoln  a  letter  which  happily  I  found 
not  long  since  in  a  bundle  of  Lincoln's  letters,  and 
which  I  insert  here,  believing  it  affords  a  better 
reflex  of  the  situation  at  the  time  than  anything  I 
might  see  fit  to  say  now.  Here  it  is : 

"REVERE  HOUSE, 

"  BOSTON,  MASS.,  March  24,  1858. 
"  FRIEND  LINCOLN  : 

"  I  am  in  this  city  of  notions,  and  am  well — very 
well  indeed.  I  wrote  you  a  hasty  letter  from 
Washington  some  days  ago,  since  which  time  I 
have  been  in  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  New  York, 
and  now  here.  I  saw  Greeley,  and  so  far  as  any  of 
our  conversation  is  interesting  to  you  I  will  relate. 
And  we  talked,  say  twenty  minutes.  He  evidently 

*  Lincoln's  greatest  fear  was  that  Douglas  might  be  taken  up  by 
the  Republicans.  Senator  Seward,  when  I  met  him  in  Washington, 
assured  me  there  was  no  danger  of  it,  insisting  that  the  Republi 
cans  nor  any  one  else  could  place  any  reliance  on  a  man  so  slippery  as 
Douglas. 


64  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

wants  Douglas  sustained  and  sent  back  to  the 
Senate.  He  did  not  say  so  in  so  many  words,  yet 
his  feelings  are  with  Douglas.  I  know  it  from  the 
spirit  and  drift  of  his  conversation.  He  talked 
bitterly — somewhat  so — against  the  papers  in  Illi 
nois,  and  said  they  were  fools.  I  asked  him  this 
question,  '  Greeley,  do  you  want  to  see  a  third  party 
organized,  or  do  you  want  Douglas  to  ride  to  power 
through  the  North,  which  he  has  so  much  abused 
and  betrayed  ? '  and  to  which  he  replied,  '  Let  the 
future  alone;  it  will  all  come  right.  Douglas  is  a 
brave  man.  Forget  the  past  and  sustain  the  right 
eous.9  Good  God,  righteous,  eh ! 

"  Since  I  have  landed  in  Boston  I  have  seen  much 
that  was  entertaining  and  interesting.  This  morn 
ing  I  was  introduced  to  Governor  Banks.  He  and 
I  had  a  conversation  about  Republicanism  and 
especially  about  Douglas.  He  asked  me  this  ques 
tion,  '  You  will  sustain  Douglas  in  Illinois,  won't 
you  ?  '  and  to  which  I  said  '  No,  never! '  He  affected 
to  be  much  surprised,  and  so  the  matter  dropped 
and  turned  on  Republicanism,  or  in  general — Lin 
coln.  Greeley's  and  other  sheets  that  laud  Douglas, 
Harris,  et  al.,  want  them  sustained,  and  will  try  to 
do  it.  Several  persons  have  asked  me  the  same 
question  which  Banks  asked,  and  evidently  they  get 
their  cue,  ideas,  or  what  not  from  Greeley,  Seward, 
et  al.  By-the-bye,  Greeley  remarked  to  me  this, 
'  The  Republican  standard  is  too  high ;  we  want 
something  practical/ 

"  This  may  not  be  interesting  to  you,  but,  how 
ever  it  may  be,  it  is  my  duty  to  state  what  is  going 
on,  so  that  you  may  head  it  off — counteract  it  in 
some  way.  I  hope  it  can  be  done.  The  Northern 
men  are  cold  to  me — somewhat  repellent. 

"  Your  friend, 

"W.  H.  HERNDON." 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  65 

On  my  return  home  I  had  encouraging  news  to 
relate.  I  told  Lincoln  of  the  favorable  mention  I 
had  heard  of  him  by  Phillips,  Sumner,  Seward,  Gar 
rison,  Beecher,  and  Greeley.  I  brought  with  me 
additional  sermons  and  lectures  by  Theodore 
Parker,  who  was  warm  in  his  commendation  of 
Lincoln.  One  of  these  was  a  lecture  on  "  The 
Effect  of  Slavery  on  the  American  People,"  which 
was  delivered  in  the  Music  Hall  in  Boston,  and 
which  I  gave  to  Lincoln,  who  read  and  returned  it. 
He  liked  especially  the  following  expression,  which 
he  marked  with  a  pencil,  and  which  he  in  substance 
afterwards  used  in  his  Gettysburg  address :  "  De 
mocracy  is  direct  self-government,  over  all  the 
people,  for  all  the  people,  by  all  the  people." 

Meanwhile,  passing  by  other  events  which  have 
become  interwoven  in  the  history  of  the  land,  we 
reach  April,  1858,  at  which  time  the  Democratic 
State  convention  met  and,  besides  nominating  can 
didates  for  State  offices,  endorsed  Mr.  Douglas's 
services  in  the  Senate,  thereby  virtually  renominat- 
ing  him  for  that  exalted  office.  In  the  very  nature 
of  things  Lincoln  was  the  man  already  chosen  in 
the  hearts  of  the  Republicans  of  Illinois  for  the 
same  office,  and  therefore  with  singular  appropriate 
ness  they  passed,  with  great  unanimity,  at  their  con 
vention  in  Springfield  on  the  i6th  of  June,  the 
characteristic  resolution :  "  That  Hon.  Abraham 
Lincoln  is  our  first  and  only  choice  for  United 
States  Senator  to  fill  the  vacancy  about  to  be 
created  by  the  expiration  of  Mr.  Douglas's  term  of 
office."  There  was  of  course  no  surprise  in  this 


66  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

for  Mr.  Lincoln.  He  had  been  all  along  led  to 
expect  it,  and  with  that  in  view  had  been  earnestly 
and  quietly  at  work  preparing  a  speech  in  acknowl 
edgment  of  the  honor  about  to  be  conferred  on 
him.  This  speech  he  wrote  on  stray  envelopes  and 
scraps  of  paper,  as  ideas  suggested  themselves, 
putting  them  into  that  miscellaneous  and  con 
venient  receptacle,  his  hat.  As  the  convention 
drew  near  he  copied  the  whole  on  connected  sheets, 
carefully  revising  every  line  and  sentence,  and 
fastened  them  together,  for  reference  during  the 
delivery  of  the  speech,  and  for  publication.  The 
former  precaution,  however,  was  unnecessary,  for  he 
had  studied  and  read  over  what  he  had  written  so 
long  and  carefully  that  he  was  able  to  deliver  it  with 
out  the  least  hesitation  or  difficulty.  A  few  days 
before  the  convention,  when  he  was  at  work  on  the 
speech,  I  remember  that  Jesse  K.  Dubois,*  who  was 
Auditor  of  State,  came  into  the  office  and,  seeing 
Lincoln  busily  writing,  inquired  what  he  was  doing 
or  what  he  was  writing.  Lincoln  answered  gruffly, 
"  It's  something  you  may  see  or  hear  some  time, 
but  I'll  not  let  you  see  it  now."  I  myself  knew 
what  he  was  writing,  but  having  asked  neither  my 
opinion  nor  that  of  any  one  else,  I  did  not  venture  to 


*  "After  the  convention  Lincoln  met  me  on  the  street  and  said, 
'Dubois,  I  can  tell  you  now  what  I  was  doing  the  other  day  when 
you  came  into  my  office.  I  was  writing  that  speech,  and  I  knew  if  I 
read  the  passage  about  the  "house  divided  against  itself"  to  you,  you 
would  ask  me  to  change  or  modify  it,  and  that  I  was  determined  not 
to  do.  I  had  willed  it  so,  and  was  willing  if  necessary  to  perish 
with  it.'  "—Statement  of  Jesse  K.  Dubois,  MS. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 


67 


offer  any  suggestions.  After  he  had  finished  the 
final  draft  of  the  speech,  he  locked  the  office  door, 
drew  the  curtain  across  the  glass  panel  in  the  door, 
and  read  it  to  me.  At  the  end  of  each  paragraph 
he  would  halt  and  wait  for  my  comments.  I  re 
member  what  I  said  after  hearing  the  first  para 
graph,  wherein  occurs  the  celebrated  figure  of  the 
house  divided  against  itself:  "It  is  true,  but  is  it 
wise  or  politic  to  say  so  ?  "  He  responded :  "  That 
expression  is  a  truth  of  all  human  experience,  '  a 
house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand/  and  '  he 
that  runs  may  read/  The  proposition  also  is  true, 
and  has  been  for  six  thousand  years.  I  want  to 
use  some  universally  known  figure  expressed  in 
simple  language  as  universally  well  known,  that 
may  strike  home  to  the  minds  of  men  in  order  to 
raise  them  up  to  the  peril  of  the  times.  I  do  not 
believe  I  would  be  right  in  changing  or  omitting  it. 
I  would  rather  be  defeated  with  this  expression  in 
the  speech,  and  uphold  and  discuss  it  before  the 
people,  than  be  victorious  without  it."  This  was 
not  the  first  time  Lincoln  had  endorsed  the  dogma 
that  our  Government  could  not  long  endure  part 
slave  and  part  free.  He  had  incorporated  it  in  a 
speech  at  Bloomington  in  1856,  but  in  obedience  to 
the  emphatic  protest  of  Judge  T.  Lyle  Dickey  and 
others,  who  conceived  the  idea  that  its  "  delivery 
would  make  Abolitionists  of  all  the  North  and 
slavery  propagandists  of  all  the  South,  and  thereby 
precipitate  a  struggle  which  might  end  in  dis 
union,"  he  consented  to  suspend  its  repetition,  but 


68  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

only  for  that  campaign.*  Now,  however,  the  situa 
tion  had  changed  somewhat.  There  had  been  a 
shifting  of  scenes,  so  to  speak.  The  Republican 
party  had  gained  some  in  strength  and  more  in 
moral  effectiveness  and  force.  Nothing  could  keep 
back  in  Lincoln  any  longer,  sentiments  of  right  and 
truth,  and  he  prepared  to  give  the  fullest  expression 
to  both  in  all  future  contests. 

Before  delivering  his  speech  he  invited  a  dozen 
or. so  of  his  friends  over  to  the  library  of  the  State 
House,  where  he  read  and  submitted  it  to  them. 
After  the  reading  he  asked  each  man  for  his 
opinion.  Some  condemned  and  not  one  endorsed  it. 
One  man,  more  forcible  than  elegant,  characterized 

it  as  a  "  d d  fool  utterance ;  "  another  said  the 

doctrine  was  "  ahead  of  its  time ;  "  and  still  another 
contended  that  it  would  drive  away  a  good  many 
voters  fresh  from  the  Democratic  ranks.  Each 
man  attacked  it  in  his  criticism.  I  was  the  last  to 
respond.  Although  the  doctrine  announced  was 

*  "After  the  meeting  was  over  Mr.  Lincoln  and  I  returned  to  the 
Pike  House,  where  we  occupied  the  same  room.  Immediately  on 
reaching  the  room  I  said  to  him,  'What  in  God's  name  could  induce 
you  to  promulgate  such  an  opinion?'  He  replied  familiarly,  'Upon 
my  soul,  Dickey,  I  think  it  is  true.'  I  reasoned  to  show  it  was  not  a 
correct  opinion.  He  argued  strenuously  that  the  opinion  was  a  sound 
one.  At  length  I  said,  'Suppose  you  are  right,  that  our  Govern 
ment  cannot  last  part  free  and  part  slave,  what  good  is  to  be  accom 
plished  by  inculcating  that  opinion  (or  truth,  if  you  please)  in  the 
minds  of  the  people?'  After  some  minutes'  reflection  he  rose  and 
approached  me,  extending  his  right  hand  to  take  mine,  and  said, 
'From  respect  for  your  judgment,  Dickey,  I'll  promise  you  I  won't 
teach  the  doctrine  again  during  this  campaign.'" — Letter,  T.  Lyle 
Dickey,  MS.,  December  8,  1866. 


3  * 

w      X 

fa      'V 


O      .> 
ffi      -? 

w      55 

II 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  69 

rather  rank,  yet  it  suited  my  views,  and  I  said, 
"  Lincoln,  deliver  that  speech  as  read  and  it  will 
make  you  President."  At  the  time  I  hardly  real 
ized  the  force  of  my  prophecy.  Having  patiently 
listened  to  these  various  criticisms  from  his  friends 
— all  of  which  with  a  single  exception  were  ad 
verse — he  rose  from  his  chair,  and  after  alluding  to 
the  careful  study  and  intense  thought  he  had  given 
the  question,  he  answered  all  their  objections  sub 
stantially  as  follows :  "  Friends,  this  thing  has  been 
retarded  long  enough.  The  time  has  come  when 
these  sentiments  should  be  uttered ;  and  if  it  is 
decreed  that  I  should  go  down  because  of  this 
speech,  then  let  me  go  down  linked  to  the  truth — 
let  me  die  in  the  advocacy  of  what  is  just  and 
right."  The  next  day,  the  I7th,  the  speech  was 
delivered  just  as  we  had  heard  it  read.  Up  to  this 
time  Seward  had  held  sway  over  the  North  by  his 
"  higher-law  "  sentiments,  but  the  "  house-divided- 
against-itself  "  speech  by  Lincoln  in  my  opinion  drove 
the  nail  into  Seward's  political  coffin.* 

Lincoln  had  now  created  in  reality  a  more  pro 
found  impression  than  he  or  his  friends  anticipated. 
Many  Republicans  deprecated  the  advanced  ground 
he  had  taken,  the  more  so  as  the  Democrats  re 
joiced  that  it  afforded  them  an  issue  clear  and 

*  If  any  student  of  oratorical  history,  after  reading  Lincoln's 
speech  on  this  occasion,  will  refer  to  Webster's  reply  to  Hayne  in  the 
Senate,  he  will  be  struck  with  the  similarity  in  figure  and  thought 
in  the  opening  lines  of  both  speeches.  In  fact,  it  may  not  be  amiss 
to  note  that,  in  this  instance,  Webster's  effort  was  carefully  read  by 
Lincoln  and  served  in  part  as  his  model. 


70  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

well  defined.  Numbers  of  his  friends  distant  from 
Springfield,  on  reading  his  speech,  wrote  him  censo 
rious  letters ;  and  one  well-informed  co-worker  *  pre 
dicted  his  defeat,  charging  it  to  the  first  ten  lines  of 
the  speech.  These  complaints,  coming  apparently 
from  every  quarter,  Lincoln  bore  with  great  pa 
tience.  To  one  complainant  who  followed  him 
into  his  office  he  said  proudly,  "  If  I  had  to  draw  a 
pen  across  my  record,  and  erase  my  whole  life  from 
sight,  and  I  had  one  poor  gift  or  choice  left  as  to 
what  I  should  save  from  the  wreck,  I  should  choose 
that  speech  and  leave  it  to  the  world  unerased." 

Meanwhile  Douglas  had  returned  from  Washing 
ton  to  his  home  in  Chicago.  Here  he  rested  for  a 
few  days  until  his  friends  and  co-workers  had  ar 
ranged  the  details  of  a  public  reception  on  the  Qth 
of  July,  when  he  delivered  from  the  balcony  of  the 
Tremont  House  a  speech  intended  as  an  answer  to 
the  one  made  by  Lincoln  in  Springfield.  Lincoln 
was  present  at  this  reception,  but  took  no  part  in  it. 
The  next  day,  however,  he  replied.  Both  speeches 
were  delivered  at  the  same  place.  Leaving  Chicago, 
Douglas  passed  on  down  to  Bloomington  and 
Springfield,  where  he  spoke  on  the  i6th  and  I7th 
of  July  respectively.  On  the  evening  of  the  latter 
day  Lincoln  responded  again  in  a  most  effective  and 
convincing  effort.  The  contest  now  took  on  a  dif 
ferent  phase.  Lincoln's  Republican  friends  urged 
him  to  draw  Douglas  into  a  joint  debate,  and  he 
accordingly  sent  him  a  challenge  on  the  24th  of 

*  Leonard  Swett. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  7! 

July.  It  is  not  necessary,  I  suppose,  to  reproduce 
here  the  correspondence  that  passed  between  these 
great  leaders.  On  the  3Oth  Douglas  finally  accepted 
the  proposition  to  "  divide  time,  and  address  the 
same  audiences,"  naming  seven  different  places, 
one  in  each  Congressional  district,  outside  of  Chi 
cago  and  Springfield,  for  joint  meetings.*  The 
places  and  dates  were,  Ottawa,  August  21 ;  Freeport, 
August  27;  Jonesboro,  September  15;  Charleston, 
September  18;  Galesburg,  October  7;  Quincy, 

*  Among  the  items  of  preparation  on  Lincoln's  part  hitherto  with 
held  is  the  following  letter,  which  explains  itself: 

"A.  CAMPBELL,  Esq.  "SPRINGFIELD,  June  28,  1858. 

"MY  DEAR  SIR: — In  1856  you  gave  me  authority  to  draw  on 
you  for  any  sum  not  exceeding  five  hundred  dollars.  I  see  clearly 
that  such  a  privilege  would  be  more  available  now  than  it  was  then. 
I  am  aware  that  times  are  tighter  now  than  they  were  then.  Please 
write  me  at  all  events,  and  whether  you  can  now  do  anything  or  not 
I  shall  continue  grateful  for  the  past. 

"Yours  very  truly, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

*  The  following  recent  letter  from  Mr.  Campbell  is  not  without 

interest : 

"  JESSE  W.  WEIK,  Esq.  "  LA  SALLE>  ILL"  Dec'  I2th> l888' 

"MY  DEAR  SIR: — I  gave  Mr.  Lincoln  some  money  in  the  office 
of  Lincoln  &  Herndon  in  Springfield  in  1856,  but  I  do  not  remem 
ber  the  exact  amount.  It  was,  however,  between  two  and  three 
hundred  dollars.  I  never  had  Mr.  Lincoln's  obligation  for  the  pay 
ment  of  any  money.  I  never  kept  any  account  of  nor  charged  my 
memory  with  any  money  I  gave  him.  It  was  given  to  defray  his  per 
sonal  expenses  and  otherwise  promote  the  interest  of  a  cause  which 
I  sincerely  believed  to  be  for  the  public  good,  and  without  the  thought 
or  expectation  of  a  dollar  of  it  ever  being  returned.  From  what  I 
knew  and  learned  of  his  careful  habits  in  money  matters  in  the 
campaign  of  1856  I  am  entirely  confident  that  every  dollar  and  dime 
I  ever  gave  was  carefully  and  faithfully  applied  to  the  uses  and 
purposes  for  which  it  was  given. 


"Sincerely  yours, 

"A.  CAMPBELL.' 


29 


7  2  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

October  13;  and  Alton,  October  15.  "I -agree 
to  your  suggestion,"  wrote  Douglas,  "  that  we  shall 
alternately  open  and  close  the  discussion.  I  will 
speak  at  Ottawa  one  hour,  you  can  reply,  occupying 
an  hour  and  a  half,  and  I  will  then  follow  for  half 
an  hour.  At  Freeport  you  shall  open  the  discus 
sion  and  speak  one  hour,  I  will  follow  for  an  hour 
and  a  half,  and  you  can  then  reply  for  half  an  hour. 
We  will  alternate  in  like  manner  in  each  successive 
place."  To  this  arrangement  Lincoln  on  the  3ist 
gave  his  consent,  "  although,"  he  wrote,  "  by  the 
terms  as  you  propose  you  take  four  openings  and 
closes  to  my  three." 

History  furnishes  few  characters  whose  lives  and 
careers  were  so  nearly  parallel  as  those  of  Lincoln 
and  Douglas.  They  met  for  the  first  time  at  the 
Legislature  in  Vandalia  in  1834,  where  Lincoln  was 
a  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives  and 
Douglas  was  in  the  lobby.  The  next  year  Douglas 
was  also  a  member.  In  1839  both  were  admitted  to 
practice  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois  on  the 
same  day.*  In  1841  both  courted  the  same  young 
lady.  In  1846  both  represented  Illinois  in  Congress 
at  Washington,  the  one  in  the  upper  and  the  other 
in  the  lower  House.  In  1858  they  were  opposing 
candidates  for  United  States  Senator ;  and  finally,  to 
complete  the  remarkable  counterpart,  both  were 
candidates  for  the  Presidency  in  1860.  While  it  is 
true  that  their  ambitions  ran  in  parallel  lines,  yet 
they  were  exceedingly  unlike  in  all  other  particulars. 

*  December  3d. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  73 

Douglas  was  short, — something  over  five  feet  high, 
—heavy  set,  with  a  large  head,  broad  shoulders, 
deep  chest,  and  striking  features.  He  was  polite  and 
affable,  but  fearless.  He  had  that  unique  trait, 
magnetism,  fully  developed  in  his  nature,  and  that 
attracted  a  host  of  friends  and  readily  made  him  a 
popular  idol.  He  had  had  extensive  experience  in 
debate,  and  had  been  trained  by  contact  for  years 
with  the  great  minds  and  orators  in  Congress. 
He  was  full  of  political  history,  well  informed 
on  general  topics,  eloquent  almost  to  the  point 
of  brilliancy,  self-confident  to  the  point  of  arrogance, 
and  a  dangerous  competitor  in  every  respect.  What 
he  lacked  in  ingenuity  he  made  up  in  strategy,  and 
if  in  debate  he  could  not  tear  down  the  struct 
ure  of  his  opponent's  argument  by  a  direct  and 
violent  attack,  he  was  by  no  means  reluctant  to 
resort  to  a  strained  restatement  of  the  latter's  po 
sition  or  to  the  extravagance  of  ridicule.  Lincoln 
knew  his  man  thoroughly  and  well.*  He  had 
often  met  Douglas  on  the  stump;  was  familiar  with 
his  tactics,  and  though  fully  aware  of  his  "  want  of 

*  An  erroneous  impression  has  grown  up  in  recent  years  concern 
ing  Douglas's  ability  and  standing  as  a  lawyer.  One  of  the  latest 
biographies  of  Lincoln  credits  him  with  many  of  the  artifices  of  the 
"shyster."  This  is  not  only  unfair,  but  decidedly  untrue.  I  always 
found  Douglas  at  the  bar  to  be  a  broad,  fair,  and  liberal-minded 
man.  Although  not  a  thorough  student  of  the  law  his  large  fund  of 
good  common-sense  kept  him  in  the  front  rank.  He  was  equally 
generous  and  courteous,  and  he  never  stooped  to  gain  a  case.  I  know 
that  Lincoln  entertained  the  same  view  of  him.  It  was  only  m  poli 
tics  that  Douglas  demonstrated  any  want  of  inflexibility  and  recti 
tude,  and  then  only  did  Lincoln  manifest  a  lack  of  faith  in  his  morals. 


74 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 


\ 


fixed  political  morals,"  was  not  averse  to  measuring 
\  swords  with  the  elastic  and  flexible  "  Little  Giant." 
Lincoln  himself  was  constructed  on  an  entirely 
different  foundation.  His  base  was  plain  common- 
sense,  direct  statement,  and  the  inflexibility  of 
logic.  In  physical  make-up  he  was  cold — at  least 
not  magnetic — and  made  no  effort  to  dazzle  people 
by  his  bearing.  He  cared  nothing  for  a  following, 
and  though  he  had  often  before  struggled  for  a  polit 
ical  prize,  yet  in  his  efforts  he  never  had  strained 
his  well-known  spirit  of  fairness  or  open  love  of  the 
truth.  He  analyzed  everything,  laid  every  state 
ment  bare,  and  by  dint  of  his  broad  reasoning  pow 
ers  and  manliness  of  admission  inspired  his  hearers 
with  deep  conviction  of  his  earnestness  and  hon 
esty.  Douglas  may  have  electrified  the  crowds 
with  his  eloquence  or  charmed  them  with  his 
majestic  bearing  and  dexterity  in  debate,  but  as 
each  man,  after  the  meetings  were  over  and  the 
applause  had  died  away,  went  to  his  home,  his 
head  rang  with  Lincoln's  logic  and  appeal  to 
manhood. 

A  brief  description  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  appearance 
on  the  stump  and  of  his  manner  when  speaking  may 
not  be  without  interest.  When  standing  erect  he 
was  six  feet  four  inches  high.  He  was  lean  in  flesh 
and  ungainly  in  figure.  Aside  from  the  sad,  pained 
look  due  to  habitual  melancholy,  his  face  had  no 
characteristic  or  fixed  expression.  He  was  thin 
through  the  chest,  and  hence  slightly  stoop-shoul 
dered.  When  he  arose  to  address  courts,  juries,  or 
crowds  of  people,  his  body  inclined  forward  to  a 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 


75 


slight  degree.  At  first  he  was  very  awkward,  and  it 
seemed  a  real  labor  to  adjust  himself  to  his  sur 
roundings.  He  struggled  for  a  time  under  a  feel 
ing  of  apparent  diffidence  and  sensitiveness,  and 
these  only  added  to  his  awkwardness.  I  have  often 
seen  and  sympathized  with  Mr.  Lincoln  during 
these  moments.  When  he  began  speaking,  his 
voice  was  shrill,  piping,  and  unpleasant.  His  man 
ner,  his  attitude,  his  dark,  yellow  face,  wrinkled  and 
dry,  his  oddity  of  pose,  his  diffident  movements — 
everything  seemed  to  be  against  him,  but  only  for 
a  short  time.  After  having  arisen,  he  generally 
placed  his  hands  behind  him,  the  back  of  his  left 
hand  in  the  palm  of  his  right,  the  thumb  and 
fingers  of  his  right  hand  clasped  around  the  left 
arm  at  the  wrist.  For  a  few  moments  he  played 
the  combination  of  awkwardness,  sensitiveness,  and 
diffidence.  As  he  proceeded  he  became  somewhat 
animated,  and  to  keep  in  harmony  with  his  growing 
warmth  his  hands  relaxed  their  grasp  and  fell  to 
his  side.  Presently  he  clasped  them  in  front  of 
him,  interlocking  his  fingers,  one  thumb  meanwhile 
chasing  another.  His  speech  now  requiring  more 
emphatic  utterance,  his  fingers  unlocked  and  his 
hands  fell  apart.  His  left  arm  was  thrown  behind, 
the  back  of  his  hand  resting  against  his  body,  his 
right  hand  seeking  his  side.  By  this  time  he  had 
gained  sufficient  composure,  and  his  real  speech 
began.  He  did  not  gesticulate  as  much  with 
his  hands  as  with  his  head.  He  used  the  latter  fre 
quently,  throwing  it  with  vim  this  way  and  that. 
This  movement  was  a  significant  one  when  he 


76  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

sought  to  enforce  his  statement.  It  sometimes 
came  with  a  quick  jerk,  as  if  throwing  off  electric 
sparks  into  combustible  material.  He  never  sawed 
the  air  nor  rent  space  into  tatters  and  rags  as  some 
orators  do.  He  never  acted  for  stage  effect.  He 
was  cool,  considerate,  reflective — in  time  self-pos 
sessed  and  self-reliant.  His  style  was  clear,  terse, 
and  compact.  In  argument  he  was  logical,  demon 
strative,  and  fair.  He  was  careless  of  his  dress,  and 
his  clothes,  instead  of  fitting  neatly  as  did  the  gar 
ments  of  Douglas  on  the  latter's  well-rounded  form, 
hung  loosely  on  his  giant  frame.  As  he  moved 
along  in  his  speech  he  became  freer  and  less  uneasy 
in  his  movements;  to  that  extent  he  was  graceful. 
He  had  a  perfect  naturalness,  a  strong  individu 
ality;  and  to  that  extent  he  was  dignified.  He 
despised  glitter,  show,  set  forms,  and  shams.  He 
spoke  with  effectiveness  and  to  move  the  judg 
ment  as  well  as  the  emotions  of  men.  There  was 
a  world  of  meaning  and  emphasis  in  the  long,  bony 
finger  of  his  right  hand  as  he  dotted  the  ideas  on 
the  minds  of  his  hearers.  Sometimes,  to  express 
joy  or  pleasure,  he  would  raise  both  hands  at  an 
angle  of  about  fifty  degrees,  the  palms  upward,  as 
if  desirous  of  embracing  the  spirit  of  that  which  he 
loved.  If  the  sentiment  was  one  of  detestation — 
denunciation  of  slavery,  for  example — both  arms, 
thrown  upward  and  fists  clenched,  swept  through  the 
air,  and  he  expressed  an  execration  that  was  truly 
sublime.  This  was  one  of  his  most  effective  gestures, 
and  signified  most  vividly  a  fixed  determination  to 
drag  down  the  object  of  his  hatred  and  trample  it 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  77 

in  the  dust.  He  always  stood  squarely  on  his  feet, 
toe  even  with  toe;  that  is,  he  never  put  one  foot 
before  the  other.  He  neither  touched  nor  leaned 
on  anything  for  support.  He  made  but  few  changes 
in  his  positions  and  attitudes.  He  never  ranted, 
never  walked  backward  and  forward  on  the  plat 
form,  To  ease  his  arms  he  frequently  caught  hold, 
with  his  left  hand,  of  the  lapel  of  his  coat,  keep 
ing  his  thumb  upright  and  leaving  his  right  hand 
free  to  gesticulate.  The  designer  of  the  monument 
recently  erected  in  Chicago  has  happily  caught  him 
in  just  this  attitude.  As  he  proceeded  with  his 
speech  the  exercise  of  his  vocal  organs  altered 
somewhat  the  tone  of  his  voice.  It  lost  in  a  meas 
ure  its  former  acute  and  shrilling  pitch,  and  mel 
lowed  into  a  more  harmonious  and  pleasant  sound. 
His  form  expanded,  and,  notwithstanding  the 
sunken  breast,  he  rose  up  a  splendid  and  imposing 
figure.  In  his  defence  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence — his  greatest  inspiration — he  was  "  tre 
mendous  in  the  directness  of  his  utterances ;  he  rose 
to  impassioned  eloquence,  unsurpassed  by  Patrick 
Henry,  Mirabeau,  or  Vergniaud,  as  his  soul  was 
inspired  with  the  thought  of  human  right  and 
Divine  justice."  *  His  little  gray  eyes  flashed  in 
a  face  aglow  with  the  fire  of  his  profound  thoughts ; 
and  his  uneasy  movements  and  diffident  manner 
sunk  themselves  beneath  the  wave  of  righteous 
indignation  that  came  sweeping  over  him.  Such 
was  Lincoln  the  orator. 

*  Horace  White,  who  was  present  and  reported  the  speech  for 
his  paper,  the  Chicago  Tribune.     Letter,  June  9,  1865,  MS. 


78  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

We  can  somewhat  appreciate  the  feeling  with 
which  Douglas,  aggressive  and  fearless  though  he 
was,  welcomed  a  contest  with  such  a  man  as  Lin 
coln.  Four  years  before,  in  a  joint  debate  with  him, 
he  had  asked  for  a  cessation  of  forensic  hostilities, 
conceding  that  his  opponent  of  rail-splitting  fame 
had  given  him  "  more  trouble  than  all  the  United 
States  Senate  together."  Now  he  was  brought  face 
to  face  with  him  again.* 

It  is  unnecessary  and  not  in  keeping  with  the  pur 
pose  of  this  work  to  reproduce  here  the  speeches 
made  by  either  Lincoln  or  Douglas  in  their  justly 
renowned  debate.  Briefly  stated,  Lincoln's  position 
was  announced  in  his  opening  speech  at  Springfield : 
" '  A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand/  I 
believe  this  Government  cannot  endure  perma 
nently  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect 
the  Union  to  be  dissolved,  I  do  not  expect  the 
house  to  fall — but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be 
divided.  It  will  become  all  the  one  thing  or  the 
other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest 
the  further  spread  of  it  and  place  it  where  the  pub 
lic  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the 
course  of  ultimate  extinction;  or  its  advocates  will 
push  it  forward  till  it  becomes  alike  lawful  in  all 
the  states,  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as 
South."  The  position  of  Douglas  on  the  question 
of  slavery  was  one  of  indifference.  He  advocated 

*  "Douglas  and  I,  for  the  first  time  this  canvass,  crossed  swords 
here  yesterday.  The  fire  flew  some,  and  I  am  glad  to  know  I  am  yet 
alive." — Lincoln  to  J.  O.  Cunningham,  Ottawa,  111.,  August  22, 
1858,  MS. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 


79 


with  all  his  power  the  doctrine  of  "  Popular  Sover 
eignty,"  a  proposition,  as  quaintly  put  by  Lincoln, 
which  meant  that,.  "  if  one  man  chooses  to  enslave 
another,  no  third  man  has  a  right  to  object."  At 
the  last  joint  discussion  in  Alton,  Lincoln,  after 
reflecting  on  the  patriotism  of  any  man  who  was  so 
indifferent  to  the  wrong  of  slavery  that  he  cared 
not  whether  it  was  voted  up  or  down,  closed  his 
speech  with  this  stirring  summary :  "  That  [slav 
ery]  is  the  real  issue.  That  is  the  issue  that  will 
continue  in  this  country  when  these  poor  tongues 
of  Judge  Douglas  and  myself  shall  be  silent.  It  is 
the  eternal  struggle  between  these  two  principles 
— right  and  wrong — throughout  the  world.  They 
are  the  two  principles  that  have  stood  face  to  face 
from  the  beginning  of  time,  and  will  ever  continue 
to  struggle.  The  one  is  the  common  right  of 
humanity,  and  the  other  the  divine  right  of  kings. 
It  is  the  same  principle,  in  whatever  shape  it 
develops  itself.  It  is  the  same  spirit  that  says: 
1  You  work  and  toil  and  earn  bread,  and  I  eat  it.' 
No  matter  in  what  shape  it  comes,  whether  from 
the  mouth  of  a  king  who  seeks  to  bestride  the 
people  of  his  own  nation  and  live  by  the  fruit  of 
their  labor,  or  from  one  race  of  men  as  an  apology 
for  enslaving  another  race,  it  is  the  same  tyrannical 
principle." 

It  is  unnecessary,  I  presume,  to  insert  here  the 
seven  questions  which  Douglas  propounded  to  Lin 
coln  at  their  first  meeting  at  Ottawa,  nor  the  his 
toric  four  which  Lincoln  asked  at  Freeport.  It 
only  remains  to  say  that  in  answering  Lincoln  at 


8o  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

Freeport,  Douglas  accomplished  his  own  political 
downfall.  He  was  swept  entirely  away  from  his 
former  foundation,  and  even  the  glory  of  a  subse 
quent  election  to  the  Senate  never  restored  him 
to  it. 

During  the  canvass  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  addition  to 
the  seven  meetings  with  Douglas,  filled  thirty-one 
appointments  made  by  the  State  Central  Com 
mittee,  besides  speaking  at  many  other  times  and 
places  not  previously  advertised.  In  his  trips  to 
and  fro  over  the  State,  between  meetings,  he  would 
stop  at  Springfield  sometimes,  to  consult  with  his 
friends  or  to  post  himself  up  on  questions  that 
occurred  during  the  canvass.  He  kept  me  busy 
hunting  up  old  speeches  and  gathering  facts  and 
statistics  at  the  State  library.  I  made  liberal  clip 
pings  bearing  in  any  way  on  the  questions  of  the 
hour  from  every  newspaper  I  happened  to  see,  and 
kept  him  supplied  with  them ;  and  on  one  or  two 
occasions,  in  answer  to  letters  and  telegrams,  I  sent 
books  forward  to  him.  He  had  a  little  leather 
bound  book,  fastened  in  front  with  a  clasp,  in  which 
he  and  I  both  kept  inserting  newspaper  slips  and 
newspaper  comments  until  the  canvass  opened.  In 
arranging  for  the  joint  meetings  and  managing  the 
crowds  Douglas  enjoyed  one  great  advantage.  He 
had  been  United  States  Senator  for  several  years, 
and  had  influential  friends  holding  comfortable  gov 
ernment  offices  all  over  the  State.  These  men  were 
on  hand  at  every  meeting,  losing  no  opportunity  to 
applaud  lustily  all  the  points  Douglas  made  and  to 
lionize  him  in  every  conceivable  way.  The  ingen- 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  81 

iously  contrived  display  of  their  enthusiasm  had 
a  marked  effect  on  certain  crowds — a  fact  of  which 
Lincoln  frequently  complained  to  his  friends. 
One  who  accompanied  him  during  the  canvass  * 
relates  this :  "  Lincoln  and  I  were  at  the  Centralia 
agricultural  fair  the  day  after  the  debate  at  Jones- 
boro.  Night  came  on  and  we  were  tired,  having 
been  on  the  fair  grounds  all  day.  We  were  to  go 
north  on  the  Illinois  Central  railroad.  The  train 
was  due  at  midnight,  and  the  depot  was  full  of 
people.  I  managed  to  get  a  chair  for  Lincoln  in  the 
office  of  the  superintendent  of  the  railroad,  but 
small  politicians  would  intrude  so  that  he  could 
scarcely  get  a  moment's  sleep.  The  train  came  and 
was  filled  instantly.  I  got  a  seat  near  the  door  for 
Lincoln  and  myself.  He  was  worn  out,  and  had 
to  meet  Douglas  the  next  day  at  Charleston.  An 
empty  car,  called  a  saloon  car,  was  hitched  on  to  the 
rear  of  the  train  and  locked  up.  I  asked  the  con 
ductor,  who  knew  Lincoln  and  myself  well, — we  were 
both  attorneys  of  the  road, — if  Lincoln  could  not 
ride  in  that  car;  that  he  was  exhausted  and  needed 
rest;  but  the  conductor  refused.  I  afterwards  got 
him  in  by  a  stratagem.  At  the  same  time  George  B. 
McClellan  in  person  was  taking  Douglas  around  in 
a  special  car  and  special  train ;  and  that  was  the  un 
just  treatment  Lincoln  got  from  the  Illinois  Central 
railroad.  Every  interest  of  that  road  and  every 
employee  was  against  Lincoln  and  for  Douglas." 
The  heat  and  dust  and  bonfires  of  the  campaign 

*  Henry  C.  Whitney,  MS.,  July  21,  1865. 


82  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

at  last  came  to  an  end.  The  election  took  place  on 
the  second  of  November,  and  while  Lincoln  received 
of  the  popular  vote  a  majority  of  over  four  thou 
sand,  yet  the  returns  from  the  legislative  districts 
foreshadowed  his  defeat.  In  fact,  when  the  Sena 
torial  election  took  place  in  the  Legislature,  Doug 
las  received  fifty-four  and  Lincoln  forty-six  votes 
— one  of  the  results  of  the  lamentable  apportion 
ment  law  then  in  operation.* 

The  letters  of  Lincoln  at  this  period  are  the  best 
evidence  of  his  feelings  now  obtainable,  and  of  how 
he  accepted  his  defeat.  To  Henry  Asbury,  a 
friend  who  had  written  him  a  cheerful  letter  ad- 

*  Horace  Greeley  was  one  of  the  most  vigilant  men  during  the 
debate.  He  wrote  to  Lincoln  and  me  many  letters  which  I  still  retain. 
In  a  letter  to  me  during  the  campaign,  October  6,  he  says  with  refer 
ence  to  Douglas:  "In  his  present  position  I  could  not  of  course 
support  him,  but  he  need  not  have  been  in  this  position  had  the 
Republicans  of  Illinois  been  as  wise  and  far-seeing  as  they  are  earn 
est  and  true.  .  .  .  but  seeing  things  are  as  they  are,  I  do  not  wish  to 
be  quoted  as  authority  for  making  trouble  and  division  among  our 
friends."  Soon  after  hearing  of  the  result  of  November  election  he 
again  writes:  "I  advise  you  privately  that  Mr.  Douglas  would  be  the 
strongest  candidate  that  the  Democratic  party  could  present  for 
President;  but  they  will  not  present  him.  The  old  leaders  wouldn't 
endorse  it.  As  he  is  doomed  to  be  slaughtered  at  Charleston  it  is 
good  policy  to  fatten  him  meantime.  He  will  cut  up  the  better  at 
killing  time."  An  inquiry  for  his  preference  as  to  Presidential 
timber  elicited  this  response,  December »4th.  "As  to  President,  my 
present  judgment  is  Edward  Bates,  with  John  M.  Read  for  Vice;  but 
I  am  willing  to  go  anything  that  looks  strong.  I  don't  wish  to  load 
the  team  heavier  than  it  will  pull  through.  As  to  Douglas,  he  is  like 
the  man's  boy  who  (he  said)  'didn't  weigh  so  much  as  he  expected,  and 
he  always  knew  he  wouldn't.'  I  never  thought  him  very  sound  coin; 
but  I  didn't  think  it  best  to  beat  him  on  the  back  of  his  anti-Lecomp- 
ton  fight,  and  I  am  still  of  that  opinion." 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  83 

monishing  him  not  to  give  up  the  battle,  he  re 
sponded  : 

"SPRINGFIELD,  November  19,  1858. 
"  Mr.  HENRY  ASBURY, 

"My  Dear  Sir: — Yours  of  the  I3th  was  re 
ceived  some  days  ago.  The  fight  must  go  on. 
The  cause  of  civil  liberty  must  not  be  surrendered 
at  the  end  of  one  or  even  one  hundred  defeats. 
Douglas  had  the  ingenuity  to  be  supported  in  the 
late  contest  both  as  the  best  means  to  break  down 
and  to  uphold  the  slave  interest.  No  ingenuity  can 
keep  these  antagonistic  elements  in  harmony  long. 
Another  explosion  will  soon  come. 

"  Yours  truly, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

To  another  friend  *  on  the  same  day  he  writes : 
"  I  am  glad  I  made  the  late  race.  It  gave  me  a 
hearing  on  the  great  and  durable  questions  of  the 
age  which  I  could  have  had  in  no  other  way;  and 
though  I  now  sink  out  of  view  and  shall  be  forgot 
ten,  I  believe  I  have  made  some  marks  which  will 
tell  for  the  cause  of  liberty  long  after  I  am  gone." 

Before  passing  to  later  events  in  Mr.  Lincoln's 
life  it  is  proper  to  include  in  this  chapter,  as  a  speci 
men  of  his  oratory  at  this  time,  his  eloquent  refer 
ence  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence  found 
in  a  speech  delivered  at  Beardstown,  August  12, 
and  not  at  Lewiston  five  days  later,  as  many  biog 
raphers  have  it.  Aside  from  its  concise  reason 
ing,  the  sublime  thought  it  suggests  entitles  it  to 
rank  beside  that  great  masterpiece,  his  Gettysburg 

*  Dr.  Henry. 


84  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

address.  After  alluding  to  the  suppression  by  the 
Fathers  of  the  Republic  of  the  slave  trade,  he  says : 
"  These  by  their  representatives  in  old  Indepen 
dence  Hall  said  to  the  whole  race  of  men:  'We 
hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident:  that  all  men 
are  created  equal ;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their 
Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights ;  that  among 
these  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.' 
This  was  their  majestic  interpretation  of  the  econ 
omy  of  the  universe.  This  was  their  lofty,  and 
wise,  and  noble  understanding  of  the  justice  of  the 
Creator  to  his  creatures — yes,  gentlemen,  to  all  his 
creatures,  to  the  whole  great  family  of  man.  In 
their  enlightened  belief,  nothing  stamped  with  the 
divine  image  and  likeness  was  sent  into  the  world 
to  be  trodden  on  and  degraded  and  imbruted  by 
its  fellows.  They  grasped  not  only  the  whole  race 
of  man  then  living,  but  they  reached  forward  and 
seized  upon  the  farthest  posterity.  They  erected 
a  beacon  to  guide  their  children,  and  their  children's 
children,  and  the  countless  myriads  who  should  in 
habit  the  earth  in  other  ages.  Wise  statesmen  as 
they  were,  they  knew  the  tendency  of  prosperity  to 
breed  tyrants,  and  so  they  established  these  great 
self-evident  truths,  that  when  in  the  distant  future 
some  man,  some  faction,  some  interest,  should  set 
up  the  doctrine  that  none  but  rich  men,  none  but 
white  men,  or  none  but  Anglo-Saxon  white  men 
were  entitled  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  hap 
piness,  their  posterity  might  look  up  again  to  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  and  take  courage 
to  renew  the  battle  which  their  fathers  began, 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  85 

so  that  truth  and  justice  and  mercy  and  all  the 
humane  and  Christian  virtues  might  not  be  ex 
tinguished  from  the  land ;  so  that  no  man  would 
hereafter  dare  to  limit  and  circumscribe  the  great 
principles  on  which  the  temple  of  liberty  was  being 
built. 

"  Now,  my  countrymen,  if  you  have  been  taught 
doctrines  conflicting  with  the  great  landmarks  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence ;  if  you  have  lis 
tened  to  suggestions  which  would  take  away  from 
its  grandeur  and  mutilate  the  fair  symmetry  of  its 
proportions;  if  you  have  been  inclined  to  believe 
that  all  men  are  not  created  equal  in  those  inalien 
able  rights  enumerated  by  our  chart  of  liberty: 
let  me  entreat  you  to  come  back.  Return  to  the 
fountain  whose  waters  spring  close  by  the  blood 
of  the  Revolution.  Think  nothing  of  me ;  take  no 
thought  for  the  political  fate  of  any  man  whomso 
ever,  but  come  back  to  the  truths  that  are  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  You  may  do  any 
thing  with  me  you  choose,  if  you  will  but  heed 
these  sacred  principles.  You  may  not  only  defeat 
me  for  the  Senate,  but  you  may  take  me  and  put 
me  to  death.  While  pretending  no  indifference  to 
earthly  honors,  I  do  claim  to  be  actuated  in  this 
contest  by  something  higher  than  an  anxiety  for 
office.  I  charge  you  to  drop  every  paltry  and  in 
significant  thought  for  any  man's  success.  It  is 
nothing;  I  am  nothing;  Judge  Douglas  is  nothing. 
But  do  not  destroy  that  immortal  emblem  of 
humanity — the  Declaration  of  American  Indepen 
dence." 


86  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

One  of  the  newspaper  men  *  who  heard  this  ma 
jestic  oration  wrote  me  as  follows:  "The  apostrophe 
to  the  Declaration  of  Independence  to  which  you 
refer  was  written  by  myself  from  a  vivid  recollec 
tion  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  speech  at  Beardstown,  August 
12,  1858.  On  the  day  following  the  delivery  of 
the  speech,  as  Mr.  Lincoln  and  I  were  proceeding 
by  steamer  from  Beardstown  to  Havana,  I  said  to 
him  that  I  had  been  greatly  impressed  by  his  con 
cluding  remarks  of  the  day  previous,  and  that  if  he 
would  write  them  out  for  me  I  felt  confident  their 
publication  would  be  highly  beneficial  to  our  cause 
as  well  as  honorable  to  his  own  fame.  He  replied 
that  he  had  but  a  faint  recollection  of  any  portion 
of  the  speech;  that,  like  all  his  campaign  speeches, 
it  was  necessarily  extemporaneous ;  and  that  its  good 
or  bad  effect  depended  upon  the  inspiration  of  the 
moment.  He  added  that  I  had  probably  over-esti 
mated  the  value  of  the  remarks  referred  to.  In 
reply  to  my  question  whether  he  had  any  objection 
to  my  writing  them  out  from  memory  and  putting 
them  in  the  form  of  a  verbatim  report,  he  said,  'None 
at  all.'  I  accordingly  did  so.  I  felt  confident  then 
and  I  feel  equally  assured  now  that  I  transcribed 
the  peroration  with  absolute  fidelity  as  to  ideas  and 
commendable  fidelity  as  to  language.  I  certainly 
aimed  to  reproduce  his  exact  words,  ard  my  recol 
lection  of  the  passage  as  spoken  was  very  clear. 
After  I  had  finished  writing  I  read  it  to  Mr.  Lin 
coln.  When  I  had  finished  the  reading  he  said, 

*  Horace  White,  MS.,  May  17,  1865 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  87 

'  Well,  those  are  my  views,  and  if  I  said  anything  on 
the  subject  I  must  have  said  substantially  that,  but 
not  nearly  so  well  as  that  is  said/  I  remember 
this  remark  quite  distinctly,  and  if  the  old  steamer 
Editor  is  still  in  existence  I  could  show  the  place 
where  we  were  sitting.  Having  secured  his  assent 
to  the  publication  I  forwarded  it  to  our  paper,  but 
inasmuch  as  my  report  of  the  Beardstown  meeting 
had  been  already  mailed  I  incorporated  the  remarks 
on  the  Declaration  of  Independence  in  my  letter 
from  Lewiston  two  or  three  days  subsequently. 
....  I  do  not  remember  ever  having  related 
these  facts  before,  although  they  have  often  recurred 
to  me  as  I  have  seen  the  peroration  resuscitated 
again  and  again,  and  published  (with  good  effect,  I 
trust)  in  the  newspapers  of  this  country  and  Eng 
land." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  importance  of  a  more  accurate  and  elaborate 
history  of  the  debate  between  Lincoln  and  Douglas 
has  induced  Mr.  Weik  and  me  to  secure,  for  publica 
tion  in  these  pages,  the  account  by  Horace  White, 
of  this  world-renowned  forensic  contest.  Mr. 
White's  means  of  knowledge,  as  fully  set  forth  in  the 
article,  are  exceptional,  and  his  treatment  of  the  sub 
ject  is  not  less  entertaining  than  truthful.  It  is  cer 
tainly  a  great  contribution  to  history  and  we  insert 
it  without  further  comment : 

"  It  was  my  good  fortune  to  accompany  Mr.  Lin 
coln  during  his  political  campaign  against  Senator 
Douglas  in  1858,  not  only  at  the  joint  debates  but 
also  at  most  of  the  smaller  meetings  where  his  com 
petitor  was  not  present.  We  travelled  together  many 
thousands  of  miles.  I  was  in  the  employ  of  the 
Chicago  Tribune,  then  called  the  Press  and  Tribune. 
Senator  Douglas  had  entered  upon  his  campaign 
with  two  short-hand  reporters,  James  B.  Sheridan 
and  Henry  Binmore,  whose  duty  it  was  to  '  write  it 
up '  in  the  columns  of  the  Chicago  Times.  The  ne 
cessity  of  counteracting  or  matching  that  force  be 
came  apparent  very  soon,  and  I  was  chosen  to  write 
up  Mr.  Lincoln's  campaign. 

"  I  was  not  a  short-hand  reporter.  The  verbatim 
reporting  for  the  Chicago  Tribune  in  the  joint  debates 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  89 

was  done  by  Mr.  Robert  R.Hitt,  late  Assistant  Secre 
tary  of  State,  and  the  present  Representative  in  Con 
gress  from  the  6th  District  of  Illinois.  Verbatim  re 
porting  was  a  new  feature  in  journalism  in  Chicago, 
and  Mr.  Hitt  was  the  pioneer  thereof.  The  publica 
tion  of  Senator  Douglas's  opening  speech  in  that 
campaign,  delivered  on  the  evening  of  July  9th,  by  the 
Tribune  the  next  morning,  was  a  feat  hitherto  unex 
ampled  in  the  West,  and  most  mortifying  to  the  Dem 
ocratic  newspaper,  the  Times,  and  to  Sheridan  and 
Binmore,  who,  after  taking  down  the  speech  as  care 
fully  as  Mr.  Hitt  had  done,  had  gone  to  bed  intend 
ing  to  write  it  out  next  day,  as  was  then  customary. 

"  All  of  the  seven  joint  debates  were  reported  by 
Mr.  Hitt  for  the  Tribune,  the  manuscript  passing 
through  my  hands  before  going  to  the  printers,  but 
no  changes  were  made  by  me  except  in  a  few  cases 
where  confusion  on  the  platform,  or  the  blowing  of 
the  wind,  had  caused  some  slight  hiatus  or  evident 
mistake  in  catching  the  speaker's  words.  I  could  not 
resist  the  temptation  to  italicise  a  few  passages  in 
Mr.  Lincoln's  speeches,  where  his  manner  of  deliv 
ery  had  been  especially  emphatic. 

"  The  volume  containing  the  debates,  published  in 
1860  by  Follett,  Foster  &  Co.,  of  Columbus,  Ohio, 
presents  Mr.  Lincoln's  speeches  as  they  appeared  in 
the  Chicago  Tribune,  and  Mr.  Douglas's  as  they  ap 
peared  in  the  Chicago  Times.  Of  course,  the  speeches 
of  both  were  published  simultaneously  in  both  papers. 
The  Chicago  Times'  reports  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  speeches 
were  not  at  all  satisfactory  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  friends, 
and  this  led  to  a  charge  that  they  were  purposely 
mutilated  in  order  to  give  his  competitor  a  more 


9o  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

scholarly  appearance  before  the  public — a  charge  in 
dignantly  denied  by  Sheridan  and  Binmore.  There 
was  really  no  foundation  for  this  charge.  Of  course, 
Sheridan  and  Binmore  took  more  pains  with  Mr. 
Douglas's  speeches  than  with  those  of  his  opponent. 
That  was  their  business.  It  was  what  they  were  paid 
for,  and  what  they  were  expected  to  do.  The  debates 
were  all  held  in  the  open  air,  on  rude  platforms  hastily 
put  together,  shaky,  and  overcrowded  with  people. 
The  reporters'  tables  were  liable  to  be  jostled  and 
their  manuscript  agitated  by  the  wind.  Some  gaps 
were  certain  to  occur  in  the  reporters'  notes  and  these, 
when  occurring  in  Mr.  Douglas's  speeches,  would  cer 
tainly  be  straightened  out  by  his  own  reporters,  who 
would  feel  no  such  responsibility  for  the  rough  places 
in  Mr.  Lincoln's.  Then  it  must  be  added  that  there 
were  fewer  involved  sentences  in  Mr.  Douglas's  ex 
tempore  speeches  than  in  Mr.  Lincoln's.  Douglas 
was  the  more  practiced  and  more  polished  speaker  of 
the  two,  and  it  was  easier  for  a  reporter  to  follow  him. 
All  his  sentences  were  round  and  perfect  in  his  mind 
before  he  opened  his  lips.  This  was  not  always  the 
case  with  Mr.  Lincoln's. 

"  My  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Lincoln  began  four 
years  before  the  campaign  of  which  I  am  writing,  in 
October,  1854.  I  was  then  in  the  employ  of  the  Chi 
cago  Evening  Journal.  I  had  been  sent  to  Springfield 
to  report  the  political  doings  of  State  Fair  week  for 
that  newspaper.  Thus  it  came  about  that  I  occupied 
a  front  seat  in  the  Representatives'  Hall,  in  the  old 
State  House,  when  Mr.  Lincoln  delivered  the  speech 
already  described  in  this  volume.  The  impression 
made  upon  me  by  the  orator  was  quite  overpowering. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  gT 

I  had  not  heard  much  political  speaking  up  to  that 
time.  I  have  heard  a  great  deal  since.  I  have  never 
heard  anything  since,  either  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  or  by 
anybody,  that  I  would  put  on  a  higher  plane  of  oratory. 
All  the  strings  that  play  upon  the  human  heart  and 
understanding  were  touched  with  masterly  skill  and 
force,  while  beyond  and  above  all  skill  was  the  over 
whelming  conviction  pressed  upon  the  audience  that! 
the  speaker  himself  was  charged  with  an  irresistible 
and  inspiring  duty  to  his  fellow  men.  This  conscien 
tious  impulse  drove  his  arguments  through  the  heads 
of  his  hearers  down  into  their  bosoms,  where  they 
made  everlasting  lodgment.  I  had  been  nurtured  in 
the  Abolitionist  faith,  and  was  much  more  radical  than 
Mr.  Lincoln  himself  on  any  point  where  slavery  was 
concerned,  yet  it  seemed  to  me,  when  this  speech  was 
finished,  as  though  I  had  had  a  very  feeble  conception 
of  the  wickedness  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill.  I 
was  filled,  as  never  before,  with  the  sense  of  my  own 
duty  and  responsibility  as  a  citizen  toward  the  aggres 
sions  of  the  slave  power. 

"  Having,  since  then,  heard  all  the  great  public 
speakers  of  this  country  subsequent  to  the  period  of 
Clay  and  Webster,  I  award  the  palm  to  Mr.  Lincoln 
as  the  one  who,  although  not  first  in  all  respects, 
would  bring  more  men,  of  doubtful  or  hostile  leanings, 
around  to  his  way  of  thinking  by  talking  to  them  on  a 
platform,  than  any  other. 

"  Although  I  heard  him  many  times  afterwards  I 
shall  longest  remember  him  as  I  then  saw  the  tall, 
angular  form  with  the  long,  angular  arms,  at  times 
bent  nearly  double  with  excitement,  like  a  large  flail 
animating  two  smaller  ones,  the  mobile  face  wet  with 


Q2  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

perspiration  which  he  discharged  in  drops  as  he  threw 
his  head  this  way  and  that  like  a  projectile — not  a 
graceful  figure,  yet  not  an  ungraceful  one.  After  lis 
tening  to  him  a  few  minutes,  when  he  had  got  well 
warmed  with  his  subject,  nobody  would  mind  whether 
he  was  graceful  or  not.  All  thought  of  grace  or  form 
would  be  lost  in  the  exceeding  attractiveness  of  what 
he  was  saying. 

"  Returning  to  the  campaign  of  1858 — I  was  sent  by 
my  employers  to  Springfield  to  attend  the  Republican 
State  Convention  of  that  year.  Again  I  sat  at  a  short 
distance  from  Mr.  Lincoln  when  he  delivered  the 
'  house-divided-against-itself '  speech,  on  the  I7th  of 
June.  This  was  delivered  from  manuscript,  and  was 
the  only  one  I  ever  heard  him  deliver  in  that  way. 
When  it  was  concluded  he  put  the  manuscript  in  my 
hands  and  asked  me  to  go  to  the  State  Journal  office 
and  read  the  proof  of  it.  I  think  it  had  already  been 
set  in  type.  Before  I  had  finished  this  task  Mr.  Lin 
coln  himself  came  into  the  composing  room  of  the 
State  Journal  and  looked  over  the  revised  proofs.  He 
said  to  me  that  he  had  taken  a  great  deal  of  pains 
with  this  speech,  and  that  he  wanted  it  to  go  before 
the  people  just  as  he  had  prepared  it.  He  added 
that  some  of  his  friends  had  scolded  him  a  good  deal 
about  the  opening  paragraph  and  '  the  house  divided 
against  itself,'  and  wanted  him  to  change  it  or  leave 
it  out  altogether,  but  that  he  believed  he  had  studied 
this  subject  more  deeply  than  they  had,  and  that  he 
was  going  to  stick  to  that  text  whatever  happened. 

"  On  the  Qth  of  July,  Senator  Douglas  returned  to 
Chicago  from  Washington  City.  He  had  stopped  a 
few  days  at  Cleveland,  Ohio,  to  allow  his  friends  to 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  93 

arrange  a  grand  entree  for  him.  It  was  arranged 
that  he  should  arrive  about  eight  o'clock  in  the 
evening  by  the  Michigan  Central  Railway,  whose  sta 
tion  was  at  the  foot  of  Lake  street,  in  which  street 
the  principal  hotel,  the  Tremont  House,  was  situated, 
and  that  he  should  be  driven  in  a  carriage  drawn  by 
six  horses  to  the  hotel,  where  he  should  make  his  first 
speech  of  the  campaign.  To  carry  out  this  arrange 
ment  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  leave  the  Mich 
igan  Southern  Railway  at  Laporte  and  go  to  Michigan 
City,  at  which  place  the  Chicago  committee  of  recep 
tion  took  him  in  charge.  It  was  noted  by  the  Chicago 
Times  that  some  malicious  person  at  Michigan  City 
had  secretly  spiked  the  only  cannon  in  the  town,  so 
that  the  Douglas  men  were  obliged  to  use  an  anvil 
on  the  occasion. 

"  When  Mr.  Douglas  and  his  train  arrived  at  the 
Lake  street  station,  the  crowd  along  the  street  to  the 
hotel,  four  or  five  blocks  distant,  was  dense,  and,  for 
the  Chicago  of  that  day,  tremendous.  It  was  with 
great  difficulty  that  the  six-horse  team  got  through  it 
at  all.  Banners,  bands  of  music,  cannon  and  fire 
works  added  their  various  inspiration  to  the  scene. 
About  nine  o'clock  Mr.  Douglas  made  his  appearance 
on  a  balcony  on  the  Lake  street  side  of  the  hotel  and 
made  his  speech.  Mr.  Lincoln  sat  in  a  chair  just  in 
side  the  house,  very  near  the  speaker,  and  was  an 
attentive  listener. 

"  Mr.  Douglas's  manner  on  this  occasion  was  courtly 
and  conciliatory.  His  argument  was  plausible  but 
worthless — being,  for  the  most  part,  a  rehash  of  his 
'  popular  sovereignty '  dogma ;  nevertheless,  he  made 
a  good  impression.  He  could  make  more  out  of  a  bad 


94  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

case,  I  think,  than  any  other  man  this  country  has  ever 
produced,  and  I  hope  the  country  will  never  produce  his 
like  again  in  this  particular.  If  his  fate  had  been  cast  in 
the  French  Revolution,  he  would  have  out-demagogued 
the  whole  lot  of  them.  I  consider  the  use  he  made  of 
this  chip  called  popular  sovereignty,  riding  upon  it 
safely  through  some  of  the  stormiest  years  in  our  his 
tory,  and  having  nothing  else  to  ride  upon,  a  feat  of 
dexterity  akin  to  genius.  But  mere  dexterity  would 
not  alone  have  borne  him  along  his  pathway  in  life. 
He  had  dauntless  courage,  unwearied  energy,  engaging 
manners,  boundless  ambition,  unsurpassed  powers  of 
debate,  and  strong  personal  magnetism.  Among  the 
Democrats  of  the  North  his  ascendency  was  unques 
tioned  and  his  power  almost  absolute.  He  was  exactly 
fitted  to  hew  his  way  to  the  Presidency,  and  he  would 
have  done  so  infallibly  if  he  had  not  made  the  mistake 
of  coquetting  with  slavery.  This  was  a  mistake  due  to 
the  absence  of  moral  principle.  If  he  had  been  as  true 
.  to  freedom  as  Lincoln  was  he  would  have  distanced 
Lincoln  in  the  race.  It  was,  in  fact,  no  easy  task  to 
prevent  the  Republicans  from  flocking  after  him  in 
1858,  when  he  had,  for  once  only,  sided  with  them,  in 
reference  to  the  Lecompton  Constitution.  There  are 
some  reasons  for  believing  that  Douglas  would  have 
separated  himself  from  the  slave-holders  entirely  after 
the  Lecompton  fight,  if  he  had  thought  that  the  Repub 
licans  would  join  in  re-electing  him  to  the  Senate.  Yet 
the  position  taken  by  the  party  in  Illinois  was  perfectly 
sound.  Douglas  was  too  slippery  to  make  a  bargain 
with.  He  afterwards  redeemed  himself  in  the  eyes  of 
his  opponents  by  an  immense  service  to  the  Union, 
which  no  other  man  could  have  rendered;  but,  up  to 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 


95 


this  time,  there  was  nothing  for  anti-slavery  men  to 
do  but  to  beat  him  if  they  could. 

"  I  will  add  here  that  I  had  no  personal  acquaint 
ance  with  Mr.  Douglas,  although  my  opportunities 
for  meeting  him  were  frequent.  I  regarded  him  as 
the  most  dangerous  enemy  of  liberty,  and,  therefore, 
as  my  enemy.  I  did  not  want  to  know  him.  Accord 
ingly,  one  day  when  Mr.  Sheridan  courteously  offered 
to  present  me  to  his  chief,  I  declined  without  giving 
any  reason.  Of  course,  this  was  a  mistake ;  but,  at  the 
age  of  twenty-four,  I  took  my  politics  very  seriously. 
I  thought  that  all  the  work  of  saving  the  country  had 
to  be  done  then  and  there.  I  have  since  learned  to 
leave  something  to  time  and  Providence. 

"  Mr.  Lincoln's  individual  campaign  began  at 
Beardstown,  Cass  county,  August  I2th.  Douglas  had 
been  there  the  previous  day,  and  I  had  heard  him. 
His  speech  had  consisted  mainly  of  tedious  repeti 
tions  of  '  popular  sovereignty,'  but  he  had  taken 
occasion  to  notice  Lincoln's  conspiracy  charge,  and 
had  called  it  '  an  infamous  lie.'  He  had  also  alluded 
to  Senator  Trumbull's  charge  that  he  (Douglas)  had, 
two  years  earlier,  been  engaged  in  a  plot  to  force  a 
bogus  constitution  on  the  people  of  Kansas  without 
giving  them  an  opportunity  to  vote  upon  it.  '  The 
miserable,  craven-hearted  wretch,'  said  Douglas,  '  he 
would  rather  have  both  ears  cut  off  than  to  use  that 
language  in  my  presence,  where  I  could  call  him  to 
account.'  Before  entering  upon  this  subject,  Douglas 
turned  to  his  reporters  and  said  'Take  this  down.'  They 
did  so  and  it  was  published  a  few  days  later  in  the  St. 
Louis  Republican.  This  incident  furnished  the  text  of 
the  Charleston  joint  debate  on  the  i8th  of  September. 


96  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

"  Mr.  Douglas's  meeting  at  Beardstown  was  large 
and  enthusiastic,  but  was  composed  of  a  lower  social 
stratum  than  the  Republican  meeting  of  the  following 
day.  Mr.  Lincoln  came  up  the  Illinois  River  from 
the  town  of  Naples  in  the  steamer  Sam  Gaty.  Cass 
county  and  the  surrounding  region  was  by  no  means 
hopeful  Republican  ground.  Yet  Mr.  Lincoln's  friends 
mustered  forty  horsemen  and  two  bands  of  music, 
beside  a  long  procession  on  foot  to  meet  him  at  the 
landing.  Schuyler  county  sent  a  delegation  of  three 
hundred,  and  Morgan  county  was  well  represented. 
These  were  mostly  Old  Line  Whigs  who  had  followed 
Lincoln  in  earlier  days.  Mr.  Lincoln's  speech  at 
Beardstown  was  one  of  the  best  he  ever  made  in  my 
hearing,  and  was  not  a  repetition  of  any  other.  In 
fact,  he  never  repeated  himself  except  when  some  re 
mark  or  question  from  the  audience  led  him  back  up 
on  a  subject  that  he  had  already  discussed.  Many  times 
did  I  marvel  to  see  him  get  on  a  platform  at  some  out-of- 
the-way  place  and  begin  an  entirely  new  speech,  equal, 
in  all  respects,  to  any  of  the  joint  debates,  and  con 
tinue  for  two  hours  in  a  high  strain  of  argumentative 
power  and  eloquence,  without  saying  anything  that  I 
had  heard  before.  After  the  Edwardsville  meeting  I 
said  to  him  that  it  was  wonderful  to  me  that  he  could 
find  new  things  to  say  everywhere,  while  Douglas  was 
parroting  his  popular  sovereignty  speech  at  every  place. 
He  replied  that  Douglas  was  not  lacking  in  versa 
tility,  but  that  he  had  a  theory  that  the  popular  sover 
eignty  speech  was  the  one  to  win  on,  and  that  the 
audiences  whom  he  addressed  would  hear  it  only  once 
and  would  never  know  whether  he  made  the  same 
speech  elsewhere  or  not,  and  would  never  care.  Most 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 


97 


likely,  if  their  attention  were  called  to  the  subject, 
they  would  think  that  was  the  proper  thing  to  do. 
As  for  himself,  he  said  that  he  could  not  repeat  to-day 
what  he  had  said  yesterday.  The  subject  kept  en 
larging  and  widening  in  his  mind  as  he  went  on,  and 
it  was  much  easier  to  make  a  new  speech  than  to 
repeat  an  old  one. 

"  It  was  at  Beardstown  that  Mr.  Lincoln  uttered 
the  glowing  words  that  have  come  to  be  known  as 
the  apostrophe  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the 
circumstances  attending  which  are  narrated  in  another 
part  of  this  book.  Probably  the  apostrophe,  as  printed, 
is  a  trifle  more  florid  than  as  delivered,  and,  therefore, 
less  forcible. 

"  The  following  passage,  from  the  Beardstown 
speech,  was  taken  down  by  me  on  the  platform  by 
long-hand  notes  and  written  out  immediately  after 
wards  : 

THE   CONSPIRACY   CHARGE. 

" '  I  made  a  speech  in  June  last  in  which  I  pointed 
out,  briefly  and  consecutively,  a  series  of  public  meas 
ures  leading  directly  to  the  nationalization  of  slavery 
— the  spreading  of  that  institution  over  all  the  Terri 
tories  and  all  the  States,  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as 
well  as  South.  I  enumerated  the  repeal  of  the  Mis 
souri  Compromise,  which,  every  candid  man  must 
acknowledge,  conferred  upon  emigrants  to  Kansas  and 
Nebraska  the  right  to  carry  slaves  there  and  hold  them 
in  bondage,  whereas  formerly  they  had  no  such  right ; 
I  alluded  to  the  events  which  followed  that  repeal, 
events  in  which  Judge  Douglas's  name  figures  quite 
prominently ;  I  referred  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision  and 


98  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

the  extraordinary  means  taken  to  prepare  the  public 
mind  for  that  decision ;  the  efforts  put  forth  by  Presi 
dent  Pierce  to  make  the  people  believe  that,  in  the 
election  of  James  Buchanan,  they  had  endorsed  the 
doctrine  that  slavery  may  exist  in  the  free  Territories 
of  the  Union — the  earnest  exhortation  put  forth  by 
President  Buchanan  to  the  people  to  stick  to  that 
decision  whatever  it  might  be — the  close-fitting  niche 
in  the  Nebraska  bill,  wherein  the  right  of  the  people 
to  govern  themselves  is  made  "  subject  to  the  consti 
tution  of  the  United  States  " — the  extraordinary  haste 
made  by  Judge  Douglas  to  give  this  decision  an  en 
dorsement  at  the  capitol  of  Illinois.  I  alluded  to 
other  concurring  circumstances,  which  I  need  not 
repeat  now,  and  I  said  that,  though  I  could  not  open 
the  bosoms  of  men  and  find  out  their  secret  motives, 
yet,  when  I  found  the  framework  of  a  barn,  or  a 
bridge,  or  any  other  structure,  built  by  a  number  of 
carpenters — Stephen  and  Franklin  and  Roger  and 
James — and  so  built  that  each  tenon  had  its  proper 
mortice,  and  the  whole  forming  a  symmetrical  piece 
of  workmanship,  I  should  say  that  those  carpenters 
all  worked  on  an  intelligible  plan,  and  understood 
each  other  from  the  beginning.  This  embraced  the 
main  argument  in  my  speech  before  the  Republican 
State  Convention  in  June.  Judge  Douglas  received 
a  copy  of  my  speech  some  two  weeks  before  his 
return  to  Illinois.  He  had  ample  time  to  examine  and 
reply  to  it  if  he  chose  to  do  so.  He  did  examine  and 
he  did  reply  to  it,  but  he  wholly  overlooked  the  body 
of  my  argument,  and  said  nothing  about  the  "  con 
spiracy  charge,"  as  he  terms  it.  He  made  his  speech 
up  of  complaints  against  our  tendencies  to  negro 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 


99 


equality  and  amalgamation.  Well,  seeing  that  Doug 
las  had  had  the  process  served  on  him,  that  he  had 
taken  notice  of  the  process,  that  he  had  come  into 
court  and  pleaded  to  a  part  of  the  complaint,  but  had 
ignored  the  main  issue,  I  took  a  default  on  him.  I 
held  that  he  had  no  plea  to  make  to  the  general 
charge.  So  when  I  was  called  on  to  reply  to  him, 
twenty-four  hours  afterwards,  I  renewed  the  charge 
as  explicitly  as  I  could.  My  speech  was  reported  and 
published  on  the  following  morning,  and,  of  course, 
Judge  Douglas  saw  it.  He  went  from  Chicago  to 
Bloomington  and  there  made  another  and  longer 
speech,  and  yet  took  no  notice  of  the  "  conspiracy 
charge."  He  then  went  to  Springfield  and  made  an 
other  elaborate  argument,  but  was  not  prevailed  upon 
to  know  anything  about  the  outstanding  indictment. 
I  made  another  speech  at  Springfield,  this  time  tak 
ing  it  for  granted  that  Judge  Douglas  was  satisfied 
to  take  his  chances  in  the  campaign  with  the  imputa 
tion  of  the  conspiracy  hanging  over  him.  It  was  not 
until  he  went  into  a  small  town,  Clinton,  in  De  Witt 
county,  where  he  delivered  his  fourth  or  fifth  regular 
speech,  that  he  found  it  convenient  to  notice  this  mat 
ter  at  all.  At  that  place  (I  was  standing  in  the  crowd 
when  he  made  his  speech),  he  bethought  himself  that 
he  was  charged  with  something,  and  his  reply  was  that 
his  "  self-respect  alone  prevented  him  from  calling  it 
a  falsehood."  Well,  my  friends,  perhaps  he  so  far  lost 
his  self-respect  in  Beardstown  as  to  actually  call  it  a 
falsehood. 

" '  But  now  I  have  this  reply  to  make :  that  while 
the  Nebraska  bill  was  pending,  Judge  Douglas  helped 
to  vote  down  a  clause  giving  the  people  of  the  Terri- 


100  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

tories  the  right  to  exclude  slavery  if  they  chose ;  that 
neither  while  the  bill  was  pending,  nor  at  any  other 
time,  would  he  give  his  opinion  whether  the  people 
had  the  right  to  exclude  slavery,  though  respectfully 
asked;  that  he  made  a  report,  which  I  hold  in  my 
hand,  from  the  Committee  on  Territories,  in  which  he 
said  the  rights  of  the  people  of  the  Territories,  in  this 
regard,  are  "  held  in  abeyance,"  and  cannot  be  imme 
diately  exercised;  that  the  Dred  Scott  decision  ex 
pressly  denies  any  such  right,  but  declares  that  neither 
Congress  nor  the  Territorial  Legislature  can  keep 
slavery  out  of  Kansas  and  that  Judge  Douglas  en 
dorses  that  decision.  All  these  charges  are  new ;  that 
is,  I  did  not  make  them  in  my  original  speech.  They 
are  additional  and  cumulative  testimony.  I  bring  them 
forward  now  and  dare  Judge  Douglas  to  deny  one  of 
them.  Let  him  do  so  and  I  will  prove  them  by  such 
testimony  as  shall  confound  him  forever.  I  say  to 
you,  that  it  would  be  more  to  the  purpose  for  Judge 
Douglas  to  say  that  he  did  not  repeal  the  Missouri 
Compromise;  that  he  did  not  make  slavery  possible 
where  it  was  impossible  before;  that  he  did  not  leave 
a  niche  in  the  Nebraska  bill  for  the  Dred  Scott  decis 
ion  to  rest  in;  that  he  did  not  vote  down  a  clause 
giving  the  people  the  right  to  exclude  slavery  if  they 
wanted  to;  that  he  did  not  refuse  to  give  his  individ 
ual  opinion  whether  a  Territorial  Legislature  could 
exclude  slavery ;  that  he  did  not  make  a  report  to  the 
Senate,  in  which  he  said  that  the  rights  of  the  people, 
in  this  regard,  were  held  in  abeyance  and  could  not  be 
immediately  exercised;  that  he  did  not  make  a  hasty 
endorsement  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision  over  at  Spring 
field  ;  *  that  he  does  not  now  endorse  that  decision ; 
*  This  refers  to  Douglas's  speech  of  June  12,  1857. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  t$t 

that  that  decision  does  not  take  away  from  the  Terri 
torial  Legislature  the  right  to  exclude  slavery ;  and  that 
he  did  not,  in  the  original  Nebraska  bill,  so  couple  the 
words  State  and  Territory  together  that  what  the  Su 
preme  Court  has  done  in  forcing  open  all  the  Territo 
ries  to  slavery  it  may  yet  do  in  forcing  open  all  the 
States.  I  say  it  would  be  vastly  more  to  the  point  for 
Judge  Douglas  to  say  that  he  did  not  do  some  of 
these  things;  that  he  did  not  forge  some  of  these 
links  of  testimony,  than  to  go  vociferating  about  the 
country  that  possibly  he  may  hint  that  somebody  is  a 
liar.' 

"  The  next  morning,  August  I3th,  we  boarded  the 
steamer  Editor  and  went  to  Havana,  Mason  county. 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  excellent  spirits.  Several  of  his 
old  Whig  friends  were  on  board,  and  the  journey  was 
filled  up  with  politics  and  story-telling.  In  the  latter 
branch  of  human  affairs,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  most  highly 
gifted.  From  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  our  travels 
the  fund  of  anecdotes  never  failed,  and,  wherever  we 
happened  to  be,  all  the  people  within  ear-shot  would 
begin  to  work  their  way  up  to  this  inimitable  story 
teller.  His  stories  were  always  apropos  of  something 
going  on,  and  oftenest  related  to  things  that  had  hap 
pened  in  his  own  neighborhood.  He  was  constantly 
being  reminded  of  one,  and,  when  he  told  it,  his  facial 
expression  was  so  irresistibly  comic  that  the  bystand 
ers  generally  exploded  in  laughter  before  he  reached 
what  he  called  the  '  nub  '  of  it.  Although  the  inter 
vals  between  the  meetings  were  filled  up  brimful  with 
mirth  in  this  way,  Mr.  Lincoln  indulged  very  sparingly 
in  humor  in  his  speeches.  I  asked  him  one  day  why 
he  did  not  oftener  turn  the  laugh  on  Douglas.  He 


*0?'l:        '':  :    $&E  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

replied  that  he  was  too  much  in  earnest,  and  that  it 
was  doubtful  whether  turning  the  laugh  on  anybody 
really  gained  any  votes. 

"  We  arrived  at  Havana  while  Douglas  was  still 
speaking.  The  deputation  that  met  Mr.  Lincoln  at 
the  landing  suggested  that  he  should  go  up  to  the 
grove  where  the  Democratic  meeting  was  going  on 
and  hear  what  Douglas  was  saying.  But  he  declined  to 
do  so,  saying :  '  The  Judge  was  so  put  out  by  my  list 
ening  to  him  at  Bloomington  and  Clinton  that  I  prom 
ised  to  leave  him  alone  at  his  own  meetings  for  the 
rest  of  the  campaign.  I  understand  that  he  is  calling 
Trumbull  and  myself  liars,  and  if  he  should  see  me  in 
the  crowd  he  might  be  so  ashamed  of  himself  as  to 
omit  the  most  telling  part  of  his  argument.'  I  strolled 
up  to  the  Douglas  meeting  just  before  its  conclusion, 
and  there  met  a  friend  who  had  heard  the  whole.  He 
was  in  a  state  of  high  indignation.  He  said  that 
Douglas  must  certainly  have  been  drinking  before  he 
came  on  the  platform,  because  he  had  called  Lincoln 
'  a  liar,  a  coward,  a  wretch  and  a  sneak/ 

"  When  Mr.  Lincoln  replied,  on  the  following  day, 
he  took  notice  of  Douglas's  hard  words  in  this  way : 

" '  I  am  informed  that  my  distinguished  friend 
yesterday  became  a  little  excited,  nervous  (?)  perhaps, 
and  that  he  said  something  about  fighting,  as  though 
looking  to  a  personal  encounter  between  himself  and 
me.  Did  anybody  in  this  audience  hear  him  use  such 
language?  (Yes,  Yes.)  I  am  informed,  further,  that 
somebody  in  his  audience,  rather  more  excited  or 
nervous  than  himself,  took  off  his  coat  and  offered  to 
take  the  job  off  Judge  Douglas's  hands  and  fight  Lin 
coln  himself.  Did  anybody  here  witness  that  warlike 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 


103 


proceeding?  (Laughter  and  cries  of  "yes.")  Well, 
I  merely  desire  to  say  that  I  shall  fight  neither  Judge 
Douglas  nor  his  second.  I  shall  not  do  this  for  two 
reasons,  which  I  will  explain.  In  the  first  place  a  fight 
would  prove  nothing  which  is  in  issue  in  this  election. 
It  might  establish  that  Judge  Douglas  is  a  more  mus 
cular  man  than  myself,  or  it  might  show  that  I  am  a 
more  muscular  man  than  Judge  Douglas.  But  this 
subject  is  not  referred  to  in  the  Cincinnati  platform, 
nor  in  either  of  the  Springfield  platforms.  Neither 
result  would  prove  him  right  or  me  wrong.  And  so  of 
the  gentleman  who  offered  to  do  his  fighting  for  him. 
If  my  fighting  Judge  Douglas  would  not  prove  any 
thing,  it  would  certainly  prove  nothing  for  me  to  fight 
his  bottle-holder.  My  second  reason  for  not  having  a 
personal  encounter  with  Judge  Douglas  is  that  I  don't 
believe  he  wants  it  himself.  He  and  I  are  about  the 
best  friends  in  the  world,  and  when  we  get  together 
he  would  no  more  think  of  fighting  me  than  of  fighting 
his  wife.  Therefore,  when  the  Judge  talked  about 
fighting  he  was  not  giving  vent  to  any  ill-feeling  of  his 
own,  but  was  merely  trying  to  excite — well,  let  us  say 
enthusiasm  against  me  on  the  part  of  his  audience. 
And,  as  I  find  he  was  tolerably  successful  in  this,  we 
will  call  it  quits/ 

"  At  Havana  I  saw  Mrs.  Douglas  (nee  Cutts) 
standing  with  a  group  of  ladies  a  short  distance  from 
the  platform  on  which  her  husband  was  speaking,  and 
I  thought  I  had  never  seen  a  more  queenly  face  and 
figure.  I  saw  her  frequently  afterwards  in  this  cam 
paign,  but  never  personally  met  her  till  many  years 
later,  when  she  had  become  the  wife  of  General  Will 
iams  of  the  regular  army,  and  the  mother  of  children 
31 


I04  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

who  promised  to  be  as  beautiful  as  herself.  There  is 
no  doubt  in  my  mind  that  this  attractive  presence  was 
very  helpful  to  Judge  Douglas  in  the  campaign.  It  is 
certain  that  the  Republicans  considered  her  a  dan 
gerous  element. 

"  From  Havana  we  went  to  Lewistown  and  thence 
to  Peoria,  still  following  on  the  heels  of  the  Little 
Giant,  but  nothing  of  special  interest  happened  at 
either  place.  As  we  came  northward  Mr.  Lincoln's 
meetings  grew  in  size,  but  at  Lewistown  the  Douglas 
gathering  was  much  the  larger  of  the  two  and  was 
the  most  considerable  in  point  of  numbers  I  had  yet 
seen. 

"  The  next  stage  brought  us  to  Ottawa,  the  first 
joint  debate,  August  2ist.  Here  the  crowd  was 
enormous.  The  weather  had  been  very  dry  and  the 
town  was  shrouded  in  dust  raised  by  the  moving  pop 
ulace.  Crowds  were  pouring  into  town  from  sunrise 
till  noon  in  all  sorts  of  conveyances,  teams,  railroad 
trains,  canal  boats,  cavalcades,  and  processions  on 
foot,  with  banners  and  inscriptions,  stirring  up  such 
clouds  of  dust  that  it  was  hard  to  make  out  what  was 
underneath  them.  The  town  was  covered  with  bunt 
ing,  and  bands  of  music  were  tooting  around  every 
corner,  drowned  now  and  then  by  the  roar  of  cannon. 
Mr.  Lincoln  came  by  railroad  and  Mr.  Douglas  by 
carriage  from  La  Salle.  A  train  of  seventeen  pas 
senger  cars  from  Chicago  attested  the  interest  felt  in 
that  city  in  the  first  meeting  of  the  champions.  Two 
great  processions  escorted  them  to  the  platform  in  the 
public  square.  But  the  eagerness  to  hear  the  speaking 
was  so  great  that  the  crowd  had  taken  possession  of 
the  square  and  the  platform,  and  had  climbed  on  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  105 

wooden  awning  overhead,  to  such  an  extent  that  the 
speakers  and  the  committees  and  reporters  could  not 
get  to  their  places.  Half  an  hour  was  consumed  in  a 
rough-and-tumble  skirmish  to  make  way  for  them,  and, 
when  finally  this  was  accomplished,  a  section  of  the 
awning  gave  way  with  its  load  of  men  and  boys,  and 
came  down  on  the  heads  of  the  Douglas  committee 
of  reception.  But,  fortunately,  nobody  was  hurt. 

"  Here  I  was  joined  by  Mr.  Hitt  and  also  by  Mr. 
Chester  P.  Dewey  of  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  who 
remained  with  us  until  the  end  of  the  campaign. 
Hither,  also,  came  quite  an  army  of  young  newspaper 
men,  among  whom  was  Henry  Villard,  in  behalf  of 
Forney's  Philadelphia  Press.  I  have  preserved  Mr. 
Dewey's  sketch  of  the  two  orators  as  they  appeared 
on  the  Ottawa  platform,  and  I  introduce  it  here  as  a 
graphic  description  by  a  new  hand : 

" '  Two  men  presenting  wider  contrasts  could 
hardly  be  found,  as  the  representatives  of  the  two 
great  parties.  Everybody  knows  Douglas,  a  short, 
thick-set,  burly  man,  with  large,  round  head,  heavy 
hair,  dark  complexion,  and  fierce,  bull-dog  look. 
Strong  in  his  own  real  power,  and  skilled  by  a  thou 
sand  conflicts  in  all  the  strategy  of  a  hand-to-hand  or 
a  general  fight;  of  towering  ambition,  restless  in  his 
determined  desire  for  notoriety,  proud,  defiant,  arro 
gant,  audacious,  unscrupulous,  "  Little  Dug  "  ascended 
the  platform  and  looked  out  impudently  and  care 
lessly  on  the  immense  throng  which  surged  and 
struggled  before  him.  A  native  of  Vermont,  reared 
on  a  soil  where  no  slave  stood,  he  came  to  Illinois  a 
teacher,  and  from  one  post  to  another  had  risen  to  his 
present  eminence.  Forgetful  of  the  ancestral  hatred 


I06  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

of  slavery  to  which  he  was  the  heir,  he  had  come  to  be 
a  holder  of  slaves,  and  to  owe  much  of  his  fame  to 
continued  subservience  to  Southern  influence. 

"  '  The  other — Lincoln — is  a  native  of  Kentucky, 
of  poor  white  parentage,  and,  from  his  cradle,  has  felt 
the  blighting  influence  of  the  dark  and  cruel  shadow 
which  rendered  labor  dishonorable  and  kept  the  poor 
in  poverty,  while  it  advanced  the  rich  in  their  pos 
sessions.  Reared  in  poverty,  and  to  the  humblest 
aspirations,  he  left  his  native  State,  crossed  the  line 
into  Illinois,  and  began  his  career  of  honorable  toil. 
At  first  a  laborer,  splitting  rails  for  a  living — deficient 
in  education,  and  applying  himself  even  to  the  rudi 
ments  of  knowledge — he,  too,  felt  the  expanding 
power  of  his  American  manhood,  and  began  to  achieve 
the  greatness  to  which  he  has  succeeded.  With  great 
difficulty,  struggling  through  the  tedious  formularies 
of  legal  lore,  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  and  rapidly 
made  his  way  to  the  front  ranks  of  his  profession. 
Honored  by  the  people  with  office,  he  is  still  the  same 
honest  and  reliable  man.  He  volunteers  in  the  Black 
Hawk  war,  and  does  the  State  good  service  in  its 
sorest  need.  In  every  relation  of  life,  socially  and  to 
the  State,  Mr.  Lincoln  has  been  always  the  pure  and 
honest  man.  In  physique  he  is  the  opposite  to 
Douglas.  Built  on  the  Kentucky  type,  he  is  very  tall, 
slender  and  angular,  awkward  even  in  gait  and  atti 
tude.  His  face  is  sharp,  large-featured  and  unpre 
possessing.  His  eyes  are  deep-set  under  heavy  brows, 
his  forehead  is  high  and  retreating,  and  his  hair  is 
dark  and  heavy.  In  repose,  I  must  confess  that  "  Long 
Abe's  "  appearance  is  not  comely.  But  stir  him  up  and 
the  fire  of  his  genius  plays  on  every  feature.  His  eye 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 


107 


glows  and  sparkles ;  every  lineament,  now  so  ill-formed, 
grows  brilliant  and  expressive,  and  you  have  before 
you  a  man  of  rare  power  and  of  strong  magnetic  influ 
ence.  He  takes  the  people  every  time,  and  there  is 
no  getting  away  from  his  sturdy  good  sense,  his  unaf 
fected  sincerity  and  the  unceasing  play  of  his  good 
humor,  which  accompanies  his  close  logic  and 
smoothes  the  way  to  conviction.  Listening  to  him  on 
Saturday,  calmly  and  unprejudiced,  I  was  convinced 
that  he  had  no  superior  as  a  stump-speaker.  He  is 
clear,  concise  and  logical,  his  language  is  eloquent 
and  at  perfect  command.  He  is  altogether  a  more 
fluent  speaker  -than  Douglas,  and  in  all  the  arts  of 
debate  fully  his  equal.  The  Republicans  of  Illinois 
have  chosen  a  champion  worthy  of  their  heartiest  sup 
port,  and  fully  equipped  for  the  conflict  with  the  great 
Squatter  Sovereign/ 

"  One  trifling  error  of  fact  will  be  noticed  by  the 
readers  of  these  volumes  in  Mr.  Dewey's  sketch.  It 
relates  to  Douglas,  and  it  is  proper  to  correct  it  here. 
Mr.  Douglas  was  never  a  slave-holder.  As  a  trustee 
or  guardian,  he  held  a  plantation  in  Louisiana  with 
the  slaves  thereon,  which  had  belonged  to  Col.  Robert 
Martin,  of  North  Carolina,  the  maternal  grandfather 
of  his  two  sons  by  his  first  marriage.  It  is  a  fact  that 
Douglas  refused  to  accept  this  plantation  and  its  be 
longings  as  a  gift  to  himself  from  Colonel  Martin  in 
the  life-time  of  the  latter.  It  was  characteristic  of  him 
that  he  declined  to  be  an  owner  of  slaves,  not  because 
he  sympathized  with  the  Abolitionists,  but  because, 
as  he  said  once  in  a  debate  with  Senator  Wade,  '  being 
a  Northern  man  by  birth,  by  education  and  residence, 
and  intending  always  to  remain  such,  it  was  impos- 


io8  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

sible  for  me  to  know,  understand,  and  provide  for  the 
happiness  of  those  people.' 

"  At  the  conclusion  of  the  Ottawa  debate,  a  circum 
stance  occurred  which,  Mr.  Lincoln  said  to  me  after 
wards,  was  extremely  mortifying  to  him.  Half  a 
dozen  Republicans,  roused  to  a  high  pitch  of  enthu 
siasm  for  their  leader,  seized  him  as  he  came  down 
from  the  platform,  hoisted  him  upon  their  shoulders 
and  marched  off  with  him,  singing  the  '  Star-Spangled 
Banner/  or  '  Hail,  Columbia/  until  they  reached  the 
place  where  he  was  to  spend  the  night.  What  use 
Douglas  made  of  this  incident,  is  known  to  the 
readers  of  the  joint  debates.  He  said  a  few  days  later, 
at  Joliet,  that  Lincoln  was  so  used  up  in  the  discussion 
that  his  knees  trembled,  and  he  had  to  be  carried  from 
the  platform,  and  he  caused  this  to  be  printed  in  the 
newspapers  of  his  own  party.  Mr.  Lincoln  called  him 
to  account  for  this  fable  at  Jonesboro. 

"  The  Ottawa  debate  gave  great  satisfaction  to  our 
side.  Mr.  Lincoln,  we  thought,  had  the  better  of  the 
argument,  and  we  all  came  away  encouraged.  But 
the  Douglas  men  were  encouraged  also.  In  his  con 
cluding  half  hour,  Douglas  spoke  with  great  rapidity 
and  animation,  and  yet  with  perfect  distinctness,  and 
his  supporters  cheered  him  wildly. 

"  The  next  joint  debate  was  to  take  place  at  Free- 
port,  six  days  later.  In  the  interval,  Mr.  Lincoln 
addressed  meetings  at  Henry,  Marshall  county;  Au 
gusta,  Hancock  county,  and  Macomb,  McDonough 
county.  During  this  interval  he  prepared  the  answers 
to  the  seven  questions  put  to  him  by  Douglas  at 
Ottawa,  and  wrote  the  four  questions  which  he  pro 
pounded  to  Douglas  at  Freeport.  The  second  of 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 


109 


these,  viz. :  '  Can  the  people  of  a  United  States  Ter 
ritory,  in  any  lawful  way,  against  the  wish  of  any 
citizen  of  the  United  States,  exclude  slavery  from  its 
limits  prior  to  the  formation  of  a  State  Constitution  ? ' 
was  made  the  subject  of  a  conference  between  Mr. 
Lincoln  and  a  number  of  his  friends  from  Chicago, 
among  whom  were  Norman  B.  Judd  and  Dr.  C.  H. 
Ray,  the  latter  the  chief  editor  of  the  Tribune.  This 
conference  took  place  at  the  town  of  Dixon.  I  was 
not  present,  but  Doctor  Ray  told  me  that  all  who  were 
there  counselled  Mr.  Lincoln  not  to  put  that  question 
to  Douglas,  because  he  would  answer  it  in  the  affirma 
tive  and  thus  probably  secure  his  re-election.  It  was 
their  opinion  that  Lincoln  should  argue  strongly  from 
the  Dred  Scott  decision,  which  Douglas  endorsed, 
that  the  people  of  the  Territories  could  not  lawfully 
exclude  slavery  prior  to  the  formation  of  a  State  Con 
stitution,  but  that  he  should  not  force  Douglas  to  say 
yes  or  no.  They  believed  that  the  latter  would  let 
that  subject  alone  as  much  as  possible  in  order  not  to 
offend  the  South,  unless  he  should  be  driven  into  a 
corner.  Mr.  Lincoln  replied  that  to  draw  an  affirma 
tive  answer  from  Douglas  on  this  question  was  exactly 
what  he  wanted,  and  that  his  object  was  to  make  it 
impossible  for  Douglas  to  get  the  vote  of  the  Southern 
States  in  the  next  Presidential  election.  He  con 
sidered  that  fight  much  more  important  that  the  pres 
ent  one  and  he  would  be  willing  to  lose  this  in  order 
to  win  that.* 

*  Mr.  Lincoln's  words  are  given  in  Mr.  Arnold's  biography 
thus:  "I  am  after  larger  game;  the  battle  of  1860  is  worth  a 
hundred  of  this."  Mr.  Arnold's  authority  is  not  mentioned,  but 
these  are  exactly  the  words  that  Doctor  Ray  repeated  to  me. 


no  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

"  The  result  justified  Mr.  Lincoln's  prevision. 
Douglas  did  answer  in  the  affirmative.  If  he  had 
answered  in  the  negative  he  would  have  lost  the  Sen 
atorial  election,  and  that  would  have  ended  his  polit 
ical  career.  He  took  the  chance  of  being  able  to 
make  satisfactory  explanations  to  the  slaveholders, 
but  they  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  him  after 
wards. 

"  The  crowd  that  assembled  at  Freeport  on  the 
27th  of  August  was  even  larger  than  that  at  Ottawa. 
Hundreds  of  people  came  from  Chicago  and  many 
from  the  neighboring  State  of  Wisconsin.  Douglas 
came  from  Galena  the  night  before  the  debate,  and 
was  greeted  with  a  great  torch-light  procession. 
Lincoln  came  the  following  morning  from  Dixon,  and 
was  received  at  the  railway  station  by  a  dense  crowd, 
filling  up  all  the  adjacent  streets,  who  shouted  them 
selves  hoarse  when  his  tall  form  was  seen  emerging 
from  the  train.  Here,  again,  the  people  had  seized 
upon  the  platform,  and  all  the  approaches  to  it,  an 
hour  before  the  speaking  began,  and  a  hand-to-hand 
fight  took  place  to  secure  possession. 

"  After  the  debate  was  finished,  we  Republicans 
did  not  feel  very  happy.  We  held  the  same  opinion 
that  Mr.  Judd  and  Doctor  Ray  had — that  Douglas's 
answer  had  probably  saved  him  from  defeat.  We 
did  not  look  forward,  and  we  did  not  look  South,  and 
even  if  we  had  done  so,  we  were  too  much  enlisted  in 
this  campaign  to  swap  it  for  another  one  which  was 
two  years  distant.  Mr.  Lincoln's  wisdom  was  soon 
vindicated  by  his  antagonist,  one  of  whose  earliest 
acts,  after  he  returned  to  Washington  City,  was  to 
make  a  speech  (February  23,  1859)  defending  him- 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  m 

self  against  attacks  upon  the  '  Freeport  heresy/  as 
the  Southerners  called  it.  In  that  debate  Jefferson 
Davis  was  particularly  aggravating,  and  Douglas  did 
not  reply  to  him  with  his  usual  spirit. 

"  It  would  draw  this  chapter  out  to  unreasonable 
length,  if  I  were  to  give  details  of  all  the  small  meet 
ings  of  this  campaign.  After  the  Freeport  joint  de 
bate,  we  went  to  Carlinville,  Macoupin  county,  where 
John  M.  Palmer  divided  the  time  with  Mr.  Lincoln. 
From  this  place  we  went  to  Clinton,  De  Witt  county, 
via  Springfield  and  Decatur.  During  this  journey  an 
incident  occurred  which  gave  unbounded  mirth  to  Mr. 
Lincoln  at  my  expense. 

"  We  left  Springfield  about  nine  o'clock  in  the 
evening  for  Decatur,  where  we  were  to  change  cars 
and  take  the  north-bound  train  on  the  Illinois  Central 
Railway.  I  was  very  tired  and  I  curled  myself  up  as 
best  I  could  on  the  seat  to  take  a  nap,  asking  Mr. 
Lincoln  to  wake  me  up  at  Decatur,  which  he  promised 
to  do.  I  went  to  sleep,  and  when  I  did  awake  I  had  the 
sensation  of  having  been  asleep  a  long  time.  It  was 
daylight  and  I  knew  that  we  should  have  reached 
Decatur  before  midnight.  Mr.  Lincoln's  seat  was 
vacant.  While  I  was  pulling  myself  together,  the 
conductor  opened  the  door  of  the  car  and  shouted, 
'  State  Line.'  This  was  the  name  of  a  shabby  little  town 
on  the  border  of  Indiana.  There  was  nothing  to  do 
but  to  get  out  and  wait  for  the  next  train  going  back 
to  Decatur.  About  six  o'clock  in  the  evening  I  found 
my  way  to  Clinton.  The  meeting  was  over,  of  course, 
and  the  Chicago  Tribune  had  lost  its  expected  report, 
and  I  was  out  of  pocket  for  railroad  fares.  I  wended 
my  way  to  the  house  of  Mr.  C.  H.  Moore,  where  Mr. 


II2  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

Lincoln  was  staying,  and  where  I,  too,  had  been  an  ex 
pected  guest.  When  Mr.  Lincoln  saw  me  coming  up 
the  garden  path,  his  lungs  began  to  crow  like  a  chant 
icleer,  and  I  thought  he  would  laugh,  sans  intermis 
sion,  an  hour  by  his  dial.  He  paused  long  enough  to 
say  that  he  had  fallen  asleep,  also,  and  did  not  wake 
up  till  the  train  was  starting  from  Decatur.  He  had 
very  nearly  been  carried  past  the  station  himself,  and, 
in  his  haste  to  get  out,  had  forgotten  all  about  his 
promise  to  waken  me.  Then  he  began  to  laugh  again. 
The  affair  was  so  irresistibly  funny,  in  his  view,  that 
he  told  the  incident  several  times  in  Washington  City 
when  I  chanced  to  meet  him,  after  he  became  Presi 
dent,  to  any  company  who  might  be  present,  and  with 
such  contagious  drollery  that  all  who  heard  it  would 
shake  with  laughter. 

"  Our  course  took  us  next  to  Bloomington,  McLean 
county;  Monticello,  Piatt  county,  and  Paris,  Edgar 
county.  At  the  last-mentioned  place  (September  8th) 
we  were  joined  by  Owen  Love  joy,  who  had  never  been 
in  that  part  of  the  State  before.  The  fame  of  Love  joy 
as  an  Abolitionist  had  preceded  him,  however,  and 
the  people  gathered  around  him  in  a  curious  and  hes 
itating  way,  as  though  he  were  a  witch  who  might 
suddenly  give  them  lock-jaw  or  bring  murrain  on  their 
cattle,  if  he  were  much  provoked.  Love  joy  saw  this 
and  was  greatly  amused  by  it,  and  when  he  made  a 
speech  in  the  evening,  Mr.  Lincoln  having  made  his 
in  the  day-time,  he  invited  the  timid  ones  to  come  up 
and  feel  of  his  horns  and  examine  his  cloven  foot  and 
his  forked  tail.  Lovejoy  was  one  of  the  most  effective 
orators  of  his  time.  After  putting  his  audience  in 
good  humor  in  this  way,  he  made  one  of  his  impas- 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  II3 

sioned  speeches  which  never  failed  to  gain  votes 
where  human  hearts  were  responsive  to  the  wrongs  of 
slavery.  Edgar  county  was  in  the  Democratic  list, 
but  this  year  it  gave  a  Republican  majority  on  the 
legislative  and  congressional  tickets,  and  I  think  Love- 
joy's  speech  was  largely  accountable  for  the  result. 

"  My  notes  of  the  Paris  meeting  embrace  the  fol 
lowing  passage  from  Mr.  Lincoln's  speech : 

WHAT   IS   POPULAR  SOVEREIGNTY? 

"  *  Let  us  inquire  what  Judge  Douglas  really  in 
vented  when  he  introduced  the  Nebraska  Bill?  He 
called  it  Popular  Sovereignty.  What  does  that  mean? 
It  means  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  over  their  own 
affairs — in  other  words,  the  right  of  the  people  to 
govern  themselves.  Did  Judge  Douglas  invent  this? 
Not  quite.  The  idea  of  Popular  Sovereignty  was 
floating  about  several  ages  before  the  author  of  the 
Nebraska  Bill  was  born — indeed,  before  Columbus 
set  foot  on  this  continent.  In  the  year  1776  it  took 
form  in  the  noble  words  which  you  are  all  familiar 
with :  '  We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident,  that 
all  men  are  created  equal/  etc.  Was  not  this  the 
origin  of  Popular  Sovereignty  as  applied  to  the  Amer 
ican  people?  Here  we  are  told  that  governments  are 
instituted  among  men  deriving  their  just  powers  from 
the  consent  of  the  governed.  If  that  is  not  Popular 
Sovereignty,  then  I  have  no  conception  of  the  mean 
ing  of  words.  If  Judge  Douglas  did  not  invent  this 
kind  of  Popular  Sovereignty,  let  us  pursue  the  inquiry 
and  find  out  what  kind  he  did  invent.  Was  it  the 
right  of  emigrants  to  Kansas  and  Nebraska  to  govern 
themselves,  and  a  lot  of  '  niggers,'  too,  if  they  wanted 


H4  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

them?  Clearly  this  was  no  invention  of  his,  because 
General  Cass  put  forth  the  same  doctrine  in  1848  in 
his  so-called  Nicholson  letter,  six  years  before  Doug 
las  thought  of  such  a  thing.  Then  what  was  it  that 
the  '  Little  Giant '  invented  ?  It  never  occurred  to 
General  Cass  to  call  his  discovery  by  the  odd  name  of 
Popular  Sovereignty.  He  had  not  the  face  to  say  that 
the  right  of  the  people  to  govern  '  niggers  '  was  the 
right  of  the  people  to  govern  themselves.  His  notions 
of  the  fitness  of  things  were  not  moulded  to  the  brazen- 
ness  of  calling  the  right  to  put  a  hundred  '  niggers  ' 
through  under  the  lash  in  Nebraska  a  '  sacred  right 
of  self-government,'  And  here,  I  submit  to  you,  was 
Judge  Douglas's  discovery,  and  the  whole  of  it.  He 
discovered  that  the  right  to  breed  and  flog  negroes  in 
Nebraska  was  Popular  Sovereignty.' 

11  The  next  meetings  in  their  order  were  Hillsboro, 
Montgomery  county;  Greenville,  Bond  county,  and 
Edwardsville,  Madison  county.  At  Edwardsville 
(September  I3th)  I  was  greatly  impressed  with  Mr. 
Lincoln's  speech,  so  much  so,  that  I  took  down  the 
following  passages,  which,  as  I  read  them  now,  after 
the  lapse  of  thirty-one  years,  bring  back  the  whole 
scene  with  vividness  before  me — the  quiet  autumn  day 
in  the  quaint  old  town ;  the  serious  people  clustered 
around  the  platform;  Joseph  Gillespie  officiating  as 
chairman,  and  the  tall,  gaunt,  earnest  man,  whose 
high  destiny  and  tragic  death  were  veiled  from  our 
eyes,  appealing  to  his  old  Whig  friends,  and  seeking 
to  lift  them  up  to  his  own  level : 

1 1  have  been  requested/  he  said,  '  to  give  a  con 
cise  statement  of  the  difference,  as  I  understand  it, 
between  the  Democratic  and  the  Republican  parties 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  I1S 

on  the  leading  issues  of  the  campaign.  This  question 
has  been  put  to  me  by  a  gentleman  whom  I  do  not 
know.  I  do  not  even  know  whether  he  is  a  friend  of 
mine  or  a  supporter  of  Judge  Douglas  in  this  contest, 
nor  does  that  make  any  difference.  His  question  is  a 
proper  one.  Lest  I  should  forget  it,  I  will  give  you 
my  answer  before  proceeding  with  the  line  of  argu 
ment  I  have  marked  out  for  this  discussion. 

" '  The  difference  between  the  Republican  and  the 
Democratic  parties  on  the  leading  issues  of  this  con 
test,  as  I  understand  it,  is  that  the  former  consider 
slavery  a  moral,  social  and  political  wrong,  while  the 
latter  do  not  consider  it  either  a  moral,  a  social  or  a 
political  wrong;  and  the  action  of  each,  as  respects 
the  growth  of  the  country  and  the  expansion  of  our 
population,  is  squared  to  meet  these  views.  I  will  not 
affirm  that  the  Democratic  party  consider  slavery 
morally,  socially  and  politically  right,  though  their 
tendency  to  that  view  has,  in  my  opinion,  been  con 
stant  and  unmistakable  for  the  past  five  years.  I  pre 
fer  to  take,  as  the  accepted  maxim  of  the  party,  the 
idea  put  forth  by  Judge  Douglas,  that  he  '  don't  care 
whether  slavery  is  voted  down  or  voted  up.'  I  am 
quite  willing  to  believe  that  many  Democrats  would 
prefer  that  slavery  should  be  always  voted  down,  and 
I  know  that  some  prefer  that  it  be  always  '  voted  up ; ' 
but  I  have  a  right  to  insist  that  their  action,  especially 
if  it  be  their  constant  action,  shall  determine  their 
ideas  and  preferences  on  this  subject.  Every  measure 
of  the  Democratic  party  of  late  years,  bearing  directly 
or  indirectly  on  the  slavery  question,  has  corresponded 
with  this  notion  of  utter  indifference,  whether  slavery 
or  freedom  shall  outrun  in  the  race  of  empire  across 


n6  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

to  the  Pacific — every  measure,  I  say,  up  to  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  where,  it  seems  to  me,  the  idea  is 
boldly  suggested  that  slavery  is  better  than  freedom. 
The  Republican  party,  on  the  contrary,  hold  that  this 
government  was  instituted  to  secure  the  blessings  of 
freedom,  and  that  slavery  is  an  unqualified  evil  to  the 
negro,  to  the  white  man,  to  the  soil,  and  to  the  State. 
Regarding  it  as  an  evil,  they  will  not  molest  it  in  the 
States  where  it  exists,  they  will  not  overlook  the  con 
stitutional  guards  which  our  fathers  placed  around  it ; 
they  will  do  nothing  that  can  give  proper  offence  to 
those  who  hold  slaves  by  legal  sanction ;  but  they  will 
use  every  constitutional  method  to  prevent  the  evil 
from  becoming  larger  and  involving  more  negroes, 
more  white  men,  more  soil,  and  more  States  in  its 
deplorable  consequences.  They  will,  if  possible,  place 
it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it 
is  in  course  of  ultimate  peaceable  extinction  in  God's 
own  good  time.  And  to  this  end  they  will,  if  possible, 
restore  the  government  to  the  policy  of  the  fathers — 
the  policy  of  preserving  the  new  Territories  from  the 
baneful  influence  of  human  bondage,  as  the  north 
western  Territories  were  sought  to  be  preserved  by 
the  ordinance  of  1787,  and  the  Compromise  Act  of 
1820.  They  will  oppose,  in  all  its  length  and  breadth, 
the  modern  Democratic  idea,  that  slavery  is  as  good 
as  freedom,  and  ought  to  have  room  for  expansion  all 
over  the  continent,  if  people  can  be  found  to  carry  it. 
All,  or  nearly  all,  of  Judge  Douglas's  arguments  are 
logical,  if  you  admit  that  slavery  is  as  good  and  as 
right  as  freedom,  and  not  one  of  them  is  worth  a  rush 
if  you  deny  it.  This  is  the  difference,  as  I  understand 
it,  between  the  Republican  and  Democratic  parties. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  H7 

" '  My  friends,  I  have  endeavored  to  show  you  the 
logical  consequences  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  which 
holds  that  the  people  of  a  Territory  cannot  prevent 
the  establishment  of  slavery  in  their  midst.  I  have 
stated  what  cannot  be  gainsaid,  that  the  grounds  upon 
which  this  decision  is  made  are  equally  applicable  to  the 
free  States  as  to  the  free  Territories,  and  that  the  pe 
culiar  reasons  put  forth  by  Judge  Douglas  for  endors 
ing  this  decision,  commit  him,  in  advance,  to  the  next 
decision  and  to  all  other  decisions  coming  from  the 
same  source.  And  when,  by  all  these  means,  you  have 
succeeded  in  dehumanizing  the  negro ;  when  you  have 
put  him  down  and  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  be  but 
as  the  beasts  of  the  field ;  when  you  have  extinguished 
his  soul  in  this  world  and  placed  him  where  the  ray  of 
hope  is  blown  out  as  in  the  darkness  of  the  damned, 
are  you  quite  sure  that  the  demon  you  have  roused 
will  not  turn  and  rend  you?  What  constitutes  the 
bulwark  of  our  own  liberty  and  independence?  It  is 
not  our  frowning  battlements,  our  bristling  sea  coasts, 
our  army  and  our  navy.  These  are  not  our  reliance 
against  tyranny.  All  of  those  may  be  turned  against 
us  without  making  us  weaker  for  the  struggle.  Our 
reliance  is  in  the  love  of  liberty  which  God  has  planted 
in  us.  Our  defence  is  in  the  spirit  which  prizes  lib 
erty  as  the  heritage  of  all  men,  in  all  lands  every 
where.  Destroy  this  spirit  and  you  have  planted  the 
seeds  of  despotism  at  your  own  doors.  Familiarize 
yourselves  with  the  chains  of  bondage  and  you  pre 
pare  your  own  limbs  to  wear  them.  Accustomed  to 
trample  on  the  rights  of  others,  you  have  lost  the 
genius  of  your  own  independence  and  become  the  fit 
subjects  of  the  first  cunning  tyrant  who  rises  among 


u8  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

you.  And  let  me  tell  you,  that  all  these  things  are 
prepared  for  you  by  the  teachings  of  history,  if  the 
elections  shall  promise  that  the  next  Dred  Scott  de 
cision  and  all  future  decisions  will  be  quietly  acqui 
esced  in  by  the  people.' 

"  From  Edwardsville  we  went  to  the  Jonesboro  joint 
debate.  The  audience  here  was  small,  not  more  than 
1,000  or  1,500,  and  nearly  all  Democrats.  This  was  in 
the  heart  of  Egypt.  The  country  people  came  into 
the  little  town  with  ox  teams  mostly,  and  a  very 
stunted  breed  of  oxen,  too.  Their  wagons  were  old- 
fashioned,  and  looked  as  though  they  were  ready  to 
fall  in  pieces.  A  train  with  three  or  four  carloads  of 
Douglas  men  came  up,  with  Douglas  himself,  from 
Cairo.  All  who  were  present  listened  to  the  debate 
with  very  close  attention,  and  there  was  scarcely  any 
cheering  on  either  side.  Of  course  we  did  not  expect 
any  in  that  place.  The  reason  why  Douglas  did  not 
get  much,  was  that  Union  county  was  a  stronghold 
of  the  '  Danites,'  or  Buchanan  Democrats.  These 
were  a  pitiful  minority  everywhere  except  in  the 
two  counties  of  Union  and  Bureau.  The  reason  for 
this  peculiarity  in  the  two  counties  named,  must 
lie  in  the  fact  that  Union  county  was  the  home  of 
the  United  States  Marshal  for  the  Southern  District, 
W.  L.  Dougherty;  and  Bureau,  that  of  the  Marshal 
for  the  Northern  District,  Charles  N.  Pine.  Evidently 
both  these  men  worked  their  offices  for  all  they  were 
worth,  and  the  result  would  seem  to  show  that  Mar- 
shalships  are  peculiarly  well  fitted  to  the  purpose  of 
turning  voters  from  their  natural  leanings.  In  Bureau 
county  the  ( Danites '  polled  more  votes  than  the 
Douglas  Democrats.  In  Union,  they  divided  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  u9 

party  into  two  nearly  equal  parts.  In  no  other  county 
did  they  muster  a  corporal's  guard;  James  W.  Shea- 
han,  the  editor  of  the  Times,  told  me,  with  great  glee, 
after  the  election,  that  at  one  of  the  voting  places  in 
Chicago,  where  the  two  Democratic  judges  of  election 
were  Irish,  a  few  '  Danite '  votes  were  offered,  but 
that  the  judges  refused  to  receive  them,  saying 
gravely,  '  We  don't  take  that  kind/  They  thought  it 
was  illegal  voting. 

:<  The  only  thing  noteworthy  that  I  recall  at  Jones- 
boro  was  not  political  and  not  even  terrestrial.  It  was 
the  splendid  appearance  of  Donati's  comet  in  the  sky, 
the  evening  before  the  debate.  Mr.  Lincoln  greatly 
admired  this  strange  visitor,  and  he  and  I  sat  for  an 
hour  or  more  in  front  of  the  hotel  looking  at  it. 

"  From  Jonesboro  we  went  to  Centralia,  where  a 
great  State  Fair  was  sprawling  over  the  prairie, 
but  there  was  no  speaking  there.  It  was  not  good 
form  to  have  political  bouts  at  State  Fairs,  and  I  be 
lieve  that  the  managers  had  prohibited  them.  After 
one  day  at  this  place,  where  great  crowds  clustered 
around  both  Lincoln  and  Douglas  whenever  they  ap 
peared  on  the  grounds,  we  went  to  Charleston,  Coles 
county,  September  i8th,  where  the  fourth  joint  debate 
took  place. 

!<  This  was  a  very  remarkable  gathering,  the  like 
of  which  we  had  not  seen  elsewhere.  It  consisted  of 
a  great  outpouring  (or  rather  inpouring)  of  the  rural 
population,  in  their  own  conveyances.  There  was 
only  one  line  of  railroad  here,  and  only  one  special 
train  on  it.  Yet,  to  my  eye,  the  crowd  seemed  larger 
than  at  either  Ottawa  or  Freeport,  in  fact  the  largest 
of  the  series,  except  the  one  at  Galesburg,  which 
32 


I20  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

came  later.  The  campaign  was  now  at  its  height, 
the  previous  debates  having  stirred  the  people  into  a 
real  fever.  '  It  is  astonishing,'  said  Mr.  Dewey,  in  his 
letter  from  Charleston  to  the  Evening  Post,  '  how  deep 
an  interest  in  politics  this  people  take.  Over  long 
weary  miles  of  hot,  dusty  prairie,  the  processions  of 
eager  partisans  come  on  foot,  on  horseback,  in  wagons 
drawn  by  horses  or  mules ;  men,  women  and  children, 
old  and  young ;  the  half-sick  just  out  of  the  last 
'  shake,'  children  in  arms,  infants  at  the  maternal 
fount ;  pushing  on  in  clouds  of  dust  under  a  blazing 
sun,  settling  down  at  the  town  where  the  meeting  is, 
with  hardly  a  chance  for  sitting,  and  even  less  oppor 
tunity  for  eating,  waiting  in  anxious  groups  for  hours 
at  the  places  of  speaking;  talking,  discussing,  litig 
ious,  vociferous,  while  the  roar  of  artillery,  the  mu 
sic  of  bands,  the  waving  of  banners,  the  huzzas  of 
the  crowds,  as  delegation  after  delegation  appears ; 
the  cry  of  peddlers  vending  all  sorts  of  wares,  from  an 
infallible  cure  for  '  agur '  to  a  monster  water-melon  in 
slices  to  suit  purchasers — combined  to  render  the 
occasion  one  scene  of  confusion  and  commotion.  The 
hour  of  one  arrives,  and  a  perfect  rush  is  made  for  the 
grounds ;  a  column  of  dust  rising  to  the  heavens,  and 
fairly  deluging  those  who  are  hurrying  on  through 
it.  Then  the  speakers  come,  with  flags  and  banners 
and  music,  surrounded  by  cheering  partisans.  Their 
arrival  at  the  grounds  and  immediate  approach  to 
the  stand,  is  the  signal  for  shouts  that  rend  the 
heavens.  They  are  introduced  to  the  audience  amid 
prolonged  and  enthusiastic  cheers,  they  are  interrupted 
by  frequent  applause  and  they  sit  down  finally  among 
the  same  uproarious  demonstrations.  The  audience 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  I2I 

sit  or  stand  patiently,  throughout,  and,  as  the  last 
word  is  spoken,  make  a  break  for  their  homes,  first 
hunting  up  lost  members  of  their  families,  gathering 
their  scattered  wagon  loads  together,  and,  as  the  day 
light  fades  away,  entering  again  upon  the  broad 
prairies  and  slowly  picking  their  way  back  to  the 
place  of  beginning/ 

"  Both  Lincoln  and  Douglas  left  the  train  at  Mat- 
toon,  distant  some  ten  miles  from  Charleston,  to  ac 
cept  the  escort  of  their  respective  partisans.  Mat- 
toon  was  then  a  comparatively  new  place,  a  station  on 
the  Illinois  Central  Railway  peopled  by  Northern  men. 
Nearly  the  whole  population  of  this  town  turned  out 
to  escort  Mr.  Lincoln  along  the  dusty  highway  to 
Charleston.  In  his  procession  was  a  chariot  con 
taining  thirty-two  young  ladies,  representing  the 
thirty-two  States  of  the  Union,  and  carrying  banners 
to  designate  the  same.  Following  this,  was  one 
young  lady  on  horseback  holding  aloft  a  banner  in 
scribed,  '  Kansas — I  will  be  free.'  As  she  was  very 
good  looking,  we  thought  that  she  would  not  remain 
free  always.  The  muses  had  been  wide  awake  also, 
for,  on  the  side  of  the  chariot,  was  the  stirring  legend : 

'  Westward  the  star  of  empire  takes  its  way; 

The  girls  link-on  to  Lincoln,  as  their  mothers  did  to  Clay.' 

"  The  Douglas  procession  was  likewise  a  formid 
able  one.  He,  too,  had  his  chariot  of  young  ladies, 
and,  in  addition,  a  mounted  escort.  The  two  proces 
sions  stretched  an  almost  interminable  distance  along 
the  road,  and  were  marked  by  a  moving  cloud  of  dust. 

"  Before  the  Charleston  debate,  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
received  (from  Senator  Trumbull,  I  suppose)  cer 
tain  official  documents  to  prove  that  Douglas  had 


122  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

attempted,  in  1856,  to  bring  Kansas  into  the  Union 
without  allowing  the  people  to  vote  upon  her  consti 
tution,  and  with  these  he  put  the  Little  Giant  on  the 
defensive,  and  pressed  him  so  hard  that  we  all  consid 
ered  that  our  side  had  won  a  substantial  victory. 

"  The  Democrats  seemed  to  be  uneasy  and  dissat 
isfied,  both  during  the  debate  and  afterward.  Mr 
Isaac  N.  Arnold,  in  his  biography  of  Lincoln,  page 
148,  relates  an  incident  in  the  Charleston  debate  on 
the  authority  of  'a  spectator'  (not  named),  to  this 
effect :  that  near  the  end  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  closing 
speech,  Douglas  became  very  much  excited  and  walked 
rapidly  up  and  down  the  platform  behind  Lincoln, 
holding  a  watch  in  his  hand ;  that  the  instant  the  watch 
showed  the  half  hour,  he  called  out  '  Sit  down !  Lin 
coln,  sit  down!  Your  time  is  up/ 

"  This  must  be  a  pure  invention.  My  notes  show 
nothing  of  the  kind.  I  sat  on  the  platform  within  ten 
feet  of  Douglas  all  the  time  that  Lincoln  was  speaking. 
If  any  such  dramatic  incident  had  occurred,  I  should 
certainly  have  made  a  note  of  it,  and  even  without 
notes  I  think  I  should  have  remembered  it.  Douglas 
was  too  old  a  campaigner  to  betray  himself  in  this 
manner,  whatever  his  feelings  might  have  been. 

"  After  the  debate  was  ended  and  the  country  peo 
ple  had  mostly  dispersed,  the  demand  for  speeches 
was  still  far  from  being  satisfied.  Two  meetings  were 
started  in  the  evening,  with  blazing  bonfires  in  the 
street  to  mark  the  places.  Richard  J.  Oglesby,  the 
Republican  nominee  for  Congress  (afterward  General, 
Governor  and  Senator),  addressed  one  of  them.  At 
the  Douglas  meeting,  Richard  T.  Merrick  and  U.  F. 
Linder  were  the  speakers.  Merrick  was  a  young  law- 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  123 

yer  from  Maryland,  who  had  lately  settled  in  Chicago, 
and  a  fluent  and  rather  captivating  orator.  Linder  was 
an  Old  Line  Whig,  of  much  natural  ability,  who  had 
sided  with  the  Democrats  on  the  break-up  of  his 
own  party.  Later  in  the  campaign  Douglas  wrote 
him  a  letter  saying :  '  For  God's  sake,  Linder,  come 
up  here  and  help  me.'  This  letter  got  into  the  news 
papers,  and  as  a  consequence,  the  receiver  of  it  was 
immediately  dubbed,  '  For-God's-Sake  Linder,'  by 
which  name  he  was  popularly  known  all  the  rest  of 
his  days. 

"  There  was  nothing  of  special  interest  between 
the  Charleston  debate  and  that  which  took  place  at 
Galesburg,  October  7th.  Here  we  had  the  largest 
audience  of  the  whole  series  and  the  worst  day,  the 
weather  being  very  cold  and  raw,  notwithstanding 
which,  the  people  flocked  from  far  and  near.  One 
feature  of  the  Republican  procession  was  a  division 
of  one  hundred  ladies  and  an  equal  number  of  gentle 
men  on  horseback  as  a  special  escort  to  the  carriage 
containing  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  whole  country  seemed 
to  be  swarming  and  the  crowd  stood  three  hours  in 
the  college  grounds,  in  a  cutting  wind,  listening  to 
the  debate.  Mr.  Lincoln's  speech  at  Galesburg  was, 
in  my  judgment,  the  best  of  the  series. 

"  At  Quincy,  October  I3th,  we  had  a  fine  day  and  a 
very  large  crowd,  although  not  so  large  as  at  Gales 
burg.  The  usual  processions  and  paraphernalia  were 
on  hand.  Old  Whiggery  was  largely  represented  here, 
and,  in  front  of  the  Lincoln  procession,  was  a  live 
raccoon  on  a  pole,  emblematic  of  a  by-gone  day  and  a 
by-gone  party.  When  this  touching  reminder  of  the 
past  drew  near  the  hotel  where  we  were  staying,  an 


124 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 


old  weather-beaten  follower  of  Henry  Clay,  who  was 
standing  near  me,  was  moved  to  tears.  After  mop 
ping  his  face  he  made  his  way  up  to  Mr.  Lincoln, 
wrung  his  hand  and  burst  into  tears  again.  The 
wicked  Democrats  carried  at  the  head  of  their  pro 
cession  a  dead  'coon,  suspended  by  its  tail.  This  was 
more  in  accord  with  existing  facts  than  the  other  spe 
cimen,  but  our  prejudices  ran  in  favor  of  live  'coons 
in  that  part  of  Illinois.  Farther  north  we  did  not  set 
much  store  by  them.  Here  I  saw  Carl  Schurz  for  the 
first  time.  He  was  hotly  in  the  fray,  and  was  an 
eager  listener  to  the  Quincy  debate.  Another  rising 
star,  Frank  P.  Blair,  Jr.,  was  battling  for  Lincoln  in 
the  southern  part  of  the  State. 

"  The  next  day  both  Lincoln  and  Douglas,  and 
their  retainers,  went  on  board  the  steamer  City  of 
Louisiana,  bound  for  Alton.  Here  the  last  of  the  joint 
debates  took  place,  October  I5th.  The  day  was  pleas 
ant  but  the  audience  was  the  smallest  of  the  series, 
except  the  one  at  Jonesboro.  The  debate  passed  off 
quietly  and  without  any  incident  worthy  of  note. 

"  The  campaign  was  now  drawing  to  a  close. 
Everybody  who  had  borne  an  active  part  in  it  was 
pretty  well  fagged  out,  except  Mr.  Lincoln.  He 
showed  no  signs  of  fatigue.  Douglas's  voice  was 
worn  down  to  extreme  huskiness.  He  took  great 
pains  to  save  what  was  left  of  his  throat,  but  to  listen 
to  him  moved  one's  pity.  Nevertheless,  he  went  on 
doggedly,  bravely,  and  with  a  jaunty  air  of  confidence. 
Mr.  Lincoln's  voice  was  as  clear  and  far-reaching  as 
it  was  the  day  he  spoke  at  Beardstown,  two  months 
before — a  high-pitched  tenor,  almost  a  falsetto,  that 
could  be  heard  at  a  greater  distance  than  Douglas's 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  125 

heavy  basso.  The  battle  continued  till  the  election 
(November  2d),  which  took  place  in  a  cold,  pelting 
rainstorm,  one  of  the  most  uncomfortable  in  the  whole 
year.  But  nobody  minded  the  weather.  The  excite 
ment  was  intense  all  day  in  all  parts  of  the  State. 
The  Republican  State  ticket  was  elected  by  a  small 
plurality,  the  vote  being  as  follows : 

FOR   STATE  TREASURER. 

MILLER  (Republican),  -  -  125,430 

FONDEY  (Douglas  Democrat),  -  121,609 

DOUGHERTY  (Buchanan  Democrat),  -  5.079 

"  The  Legislature  consisted  of  twenty-five  Sen 
ators  and  seventy-five  Representatives.  Thirteen  Sen 
ators  held  over  from  the  preceding  election.  Of  these, 
eight  were  Democrats  and  five  Republicans.  Of  the 
twelve  Senators  elected  this  year,  the  Democrats 
elected  six  and  the  Republicans  six.  So  the  new 
Senate  was  composed  of  fourteen  Democrats  and 
eleven  Republicans. 

"  Of  the  seventy-five  members  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  the  Democrats  elected  forty  and  the 
Republicans  thirty-five. 

"  On  joint  ballot,  therefore,  the  Democrats  had 
fifty-four  and  the  Republicans  forty-six.  And  by  this 
vote  was  Mr.  Douglas  re-elected  Senator. 

"  Mr.  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  in  his  biography,  says  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  lost  the  election  because  a  number  of  the 
holding-over  Senators,  representing  districts  that 
actually  gave  Republican  majorities  in  this  election, 
were  Democrats.  This  is  an  error,  and  an  inexcus 
able  one  for  a  person  who  is  writing  history.  The 
apportionment  of  the  State  into  Legislative  districts 
had  become,  by  the  growth  and  movement  of  popula- 


126  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

tion,  unduly  favorable  to  the  Democrats;  that  is,  it 
required  fewer  votes  on  the  average  to  elect  a  mem 
ber  in  a  Democratic  district  than  in  a  Republican 
district.  But  ideal  perfection  is  never  attained  in 
such  matters.  By  the  rules  of  the  game  Douglas  had 
fairly  won.  The  Republicans  claimed  that  the  Lin 
coln  members  of  the  Lower  House  of  the  Legislature 
received  more  votes,  all  told,  than  the  Douglas  mem 
bers.  These  figures  are  not,  at  this  writing,  accessible 
to  me,  but  my  recollection  is  that,  even  on  this  basis, 
Douglas  scored  a  small  majority.  There  were  five 
thousand  Democratic  votes  to  be  accounted  for,  which 
had  been  cast  for  Dougherty  for  State  Treasurer,  and 
of  these,  the  Douglas  candidates  for  the  Legislature 
would  naturally  get  more  than  the  Lincoln  candi 
dates. 

"  What  is  more  to  the  purpose,  is  that  the  Repub 
licans  gained  29,241  votes,  as  against  a  Democratic 
gain  of  21,332  (counting  the  Douglas  and  Buchanan 
vote  together),  over  the  presidential  election  of  1856. 
There  were  37,444  votes  for  Fillmore  in  that  year,  and 
there  was  also  an  increase  of  the  total  vote  of  13,129. 
These  50,573  votes,  or  their  equivalents,  were  divided 
between  Lincoln  and  Douglas  in  the  ratio  of  29  to  21. 

"  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  he  said  at  the  Dixon  Conference, 
had  gone  after  '  larger  game,'  and  he  had  bagged  it  to 
a  greater  extent  than  he,  or  anybody,  then,  imagined. 
But  the  immediate  prize  was  taken  by  his  great  rival. 

"  I  say  great  rival,  with  a  full  sense  of  the  meaning 
of  the  words.  I  heard  Mr.  Douglas  deliver  his  speech 
to  the  members  of  the  Illinois  Legislature,  April  25, 
1 86 1,  in  the  gathering  tumult  of  arms.  It  was  like  a 
blast  of  thunder.  I  do  not  think  that  it  is  possible  for  a 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 


127 


human  being  to  produce  a  more  prodigious  effect  with 
spoken  words,  than  he  produced  on  those  who  were 
within  the  sound  of  his  voice.  He  was  standing  in 
the  same  place  where  I  had  first  heard  Mr.  Lincoln. 
The  veins  of  his  neck  and  forehead  were  swollen  with 
passion,  and  the  perspiration  ran  down  his  face  in 
streams.  His  voice  had  recovered  its  clearness  from 
the  strain  of  the  previous  year,  and  was  frequently 
broken  with  emotion.  The  amazing  force  that  he 
threw  into  the  words :  '  When  hostile  armies  are 
marching  under  new  and  odious  banners  against  the 
government  of  our  country,  the  shortest  way  to  peace 
is  the  most  stupendous  and  unanimous  preparation 
for  war,'  seemed  to  shake  the  whole  building.  That 
speech  hushed  the  breath  of  treason  in  every  corner  of 
the  State.  Two  months  later  he  was  in  his  grave.  He 
was  only  forty-eight  years  old. 

"  The  next  time  I  saw  Mr.  Lincoln,  after  the 
election,  I  said  to  him  that  I  hoped  he  was  not  so  much 
disappointed  as  I  had  been.  This,  of  course, '  reminded 
him  of  a  little  story.'  I  have  forgotten  the  story,  but 
it  was  about  an  over-grown  boy  who  had  met  with 
some  mishap,  '  stumped  '  his  toe,  perhaps,  and  who 
said  that  '  it  hurt  too  much  to  laugh,  and  he  was  too 
big  to  cry.' 

"  Mention  has  been  made  of  the  '  Danites  '  in  the 
campaign.  They  were  the  Buchanan  office-holders 
and  their  underlings,  and,  generally,  a  contemptible 
lot.  The  chief  dispenser  of  patronage  for  Illinois  was 
John  Slidell,  Senator  from  Louisiana.  He  took  so 
much  interest  in  his  vocation  that  he  came  to  Chicago 
as  early  as  the  month  of  July,  to  see  how  the  post 
masters  were  doing  their  work.  He  hated  Douglas 


128  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

intensely,  and  slandered  him  vilely,  telling  stories 
about  the  cruel  treatment  and  dreadful  condition  of 
the  negroes  on  the  Douglas  plantation  in  Louisiana. 
These  stories  were  told  to  Dr.  Daniel  Brainard,  the 
surgeon  of  the  U.  S.  Marine  Hospital.  Brainard  was 
a  Buchanan  Democrat,  like  all  the  other  federal  office 
holders,  but  was  a  very  distinguished  surgeon;  in 
fact,  at  the  head  of  his  profession,  and  a  man  of  wealth 
and  social  standing.  He  became  convinced  that 
Slidell's  story  about  the  Douglas  negroes  was  true, 
and  he  communicated  it  to  Doctor  Ray,  and  urged  him 
to  publish  it  in  the  Tribune.  Doctor  Ray  did  so,  with 
out,  however,  giving  any  names.  It  made  no  little  com 
motion.  Presently,  the  New  Orleans  Picayune  denied 
the  truth  of  the  statement,  concerning  the  condition 
and  treatment  of  the  negroes,  and  called  it '  an  election 
canard.'  Then  the  Chicago  Times  called  for  the 
authority,  and  the  Tribune  gave  the  names  of  Brainard 
and  Slidell.  The  latter  at  once  published  a  card  in 
the  Washington  Union,  denying  that  he  had  ever 
made  the  statements  attributed  to  him  by  Brainard. 
The  latter  was  immediately  in  distress.  He  first 
denied  that  he  had  made  the  statements  imputed  to 
him,  but  afterward  admitted  that  he  had  had  conver 
sations  with  a  Republican  editor  about  the  hardships 
of  the  Douglas  negroes,  but  denied  that  he  had  given 
Slidell  as  authority.  Nobody  doubted  that  the  author 
ship  of  the  story  was  correctly  stated  in  the  first  pub 
lication.  It  was  much  too  circumstantial  to  have  been 
invented,  and  Doctor  Ray  was  not  the  man  to  publish 
lies  knowingly. 

"  The  '  Danites  '  held  a  State  convention  at  Spring 
field,  September  8th,  or,  rather,  they  had  called  one 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  I2g 

for  that  date,  but  the  attendance  was  so  small  that 
they  organized  it  as  a  convention  of  the  Sixth  Con 
gressional  District.  John  C.  Breckinridge  and  Daniel 
S.  Dickinson  had  been  announced  as  speakers  for  the 
occasion,  but  neither  of  them  appeared.  Breckin 
ridge  took  no  notice  of  this  meeting,  or  of  his  in 
vitation  to  be  present.  A  telegram  was  read  from 
Dickinson,  sending  '  a  thousand  greetings/  and  this, 
the  Douglas  men  said,  was  liberal,  being  about  ten  to 
each  delegate.  Ex-Gov.  John  Reynolds  was  the  prin 
cipal  speaker.  Douglas  was  in  Springfield  the  same 
day.  He  met  his  enemies  by  chance  at  the  railway 
station,  and  glared  defiance  at  them. 

"  Mention  should  be  made  of  the  services  of  Sena 
tor  Trumbull  in  the  campaign.  Mr.  Trumbull  was  a 
political  debator,  scarcely,  if  at  all,  inferior  to  either 
Lincoln  or  Douglas.  He  had  given  Douglas  more 
trouble  in  the  Senate,  during  the  three  years  he  had 
been  there,  than  anybody  else  in  that  body.  He  had 
known  Douglas  from  his  youth,  and  he  knew  all  the 
joints  in  his  armor.  He  possessed  a  courage  equal 
to  any  occasion,  and  he  wielded  a  blade  of  tempered 
steel.  He  was  not  present  at  any  of  the  joint  debates, 
or  at  any  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  separate  meetings,  but 
addressed  meetings  wherever  the  State  Central  Com 
mittee  sent  him.  Mr.  Lincoln  often  spoke  of  him  to 
me,  and  always  in  terms  of  admiration.  That  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  sorely  disappointed  at  losing  the  Sena- 
torship  in  1855,  when  Trumbull  was  elected,  is  quite 
true,  but  he  knew,  as  well  as  anybody,  that  in  the  then 
condition  of  parties,  such  a  result  could  not  be  avoided. 
Judd,  Palmer  and  Cook  had  been  elected  to  the  Leg 
islature  as  Democrats.  The  Republican  party  was 


I3o  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

not  yet  born.  The  political  elements  were  in  the 
boiling  stage.  These  men  could  not  tell  what  kind  of 
crystallization  would  take  place.  The  only  safe 
course  for  them,  looking  to  their  constituencies,  was 
to  vote  for  a  Democrat  who  was  opposed  to  the  ex 
tension  of  slavery.  Such  a  man  they  found  in  Lyman 
Trumbull,.  and  they  knew  that  no  mistake  would  be 
made  in  choosing  him.  I  say  that  Mr.  Lincoln  knew 
all  this  as  fully  as  anybody  could.  I  do  not  remem 
ber  having  any  talk  with  him  on  that  subject,  for  it 
was  then  somewhat  stale.  But  I  do  remember  the 
hearty  good  feeling  that  he  cherished  toward  Trum- 
bull  and  the  three  men  here  mentioned,  who  were 
chiefly  instrumental  in  securing  Trumbull's  election. 

"  Douglas  scented  danger  when  Trumbull  took  the 
field,  and,  with  his  usual  adroitness,  sought  to  gain 
sympathy  by  making  it  appear  that  it  was  no  fair 
game.  At  Havana,  in  the  speech  already  alluded  to, 
he  made  a  rather  moving  remonstrance  against  this 
'  playing  of  two  upon  one,'  as  he  called  it.  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  in  his  speech  at  the  same  place,  thought  it  worth 
while  to  reply : 

" '  I  understand/  he  said,  '  that  Judge  Douglas,  yes 
terday,  referred  to  the  fact  that  both  Judge  Trumbull 
and  myself  are  making  speeches  throughout  the  State 
to  beat  him  for  the  Senate,  and  that  he  tried  to  create 
sympathy  by  the  suggestion  that  this  was  playing  two 
upon  one  against  him.  It  is  true  that  Judge  Trumbull 
has  made  a  speech  in  Chicago,  and  I  believe  he  in 
tends  to  co-operate  with  the  Republican  Central  Com 
mittee  in  their  arrangements  for  the  campaign,  to  the 
extent  of  making  other  speeches  in  different  parts  of 
the  State.  Judge  Trumbull  is  a  Republican  like 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  131 

myself,  and  he  naturally  feels  a  lively  interest  in  the 
success  of  his  party.  Is  there  anything  wrong  about 
that?  But  I  will  show  you  how  little  Judge  Doug 
las's  appeal  to  your  sympathies  amounts  to.  At  the 
next  general  election,  two  years  from  now,  a  Legisla 
ture  will  be  elected,  which  will  have  to  choose  a  suc 
cessor  to  Judge  Trumbull.  Of  course,  there  will  be 
an  effort  to  fill  his  place  with  a  Democrat.  This  per 
son,  whoever  he  may  be,  is  probably  out  making 
stump-speeches  against  me,  just  as  Judge  Douglas  is. 
He  may  be  one  of  the  present  Democratic  members 
of  the  Lower  House  of  Congress — but,  whoever  he  is, 
I  can  tell  you  that  he  has  got  to  make  some  stump- 
speeches  now,  or  his  party  will  not  nominate  him  for 
the  seat  occupied  by  Judge  Trumbull.  Well,  are  not 
Judge  Douglas  and  this  man  playing  two  upon  one 
against  me,  just  as  much  as  Judge  Trumbull  and  I  are 
playing  two  upon  one  against  Judge  Douglas?  And, 
if  it  happens  that  there  are  two  Democratic  aspirants 
for  Judge  Trumbull's  place,  are  they  not  playing  three 
upon  one  against  me,  just  as  we  are  playing  two  upon 
one  against  Judge  Douglas  ?  ' 

"  Douglas  had  as  many  helpers  as  Lincoln  had. 
His  complaint  implied  that  there  was  nobody  on  the 
Democratic  side  who  was  anywhere  near  being  a  match 
for  Trumbull,  and  this  was  the  fact. 

"  I  think  that  this  was  the  most  important  intel 
lectual  wrestle  that  has  ever  taken  place  in  this 
country,  and  that  it  will  bear  comparison  with  any 
which  history  mentions.  Its  consequences  we  all 
know.  It  gave  Mr.  Lincoln  such  prominence  in  the 
public  eye  that  his  nomination  to  the  Presidency 
became  possible  and  almost  inevitable.  It  put  an 


132  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

apple  of  discord  in  the  Democratic  party  which  hope 
lessly  divided  it  at  Charleston,  thus  making  Republi 
can  success  in  1860  morally  certain.  This  was  one 
of  Mr.  Lincoln's  designs,  as  has  been  already  shown. 
Perhaps  the  Charleston  schism  would  have  taken 
place,  even  if  Douglas  had  not  been  driven  into  a 
corner  at  Freeport,  and  compelled  to  proclaim  the 
doctrine  of  '  unfriendly  legislation,'  but  it  is  more 
likely  that  the  break  would  have  been  postponed  a  few 
years  longer. 

"  Everything  stated  in  this  chapter  is  taken  from 
memoranda  made  at  the  time  of  occurrence.  I  need 
not  say  that  I  conceived  an  ardent  attachment  to  Mr. 
Lincoln.  Nobody  could  be  much  in  his  society  with 
out  being  strongly  drawn  to  him. 

"  HORACE  WHITE." 

NEW  YORK,  February  27,  1890. 


CHAPTER  V. 

BEFORE  Mr.  Lincoln  surrenders  himself  com 
pletely  to  the  public — for  it  is  apparent  he  is  fast  ap 
proaching  the  great  crisis  of  his  career — it  may  not 
be  entirely  inappropriate  to  take  a  nearer  and  more 
personal  view  of  him.  A  knowledge  of  his  personal 
views  and  actions,  a  glimpse  through  the  doorway 
of  his  home,  and  a  more  thorough  acquaintance 
with  his  marked  and  strong  points  as  they  devel 
oped,  will  aid  us  greatly  in  forming  our  general  es 
timate  of  the  man.  When  Mr.  Lincoln  entered  the 
domain  of  investigation  he  was  a  severe  and  per 
sistent  thinker,  and  had  wonderful  endurance ;  hence 
he  was  abstracted,  and  for  that  reason  at  times  was 
somewhat  unsocial,  reticent,  and  uncommunicative. 
After  his  marriage  it  cannot  be  said  that  he  liked 
the  society  of  ladies ;  in  fact,  it  was  just  what  he  did 
not  like,  though  one  of  his  biographers  says  other 
wise.  Lincoln  had  none  of  the  tender  ways  that 
please  a  woman,  and  he  could  not,  it  seemed,  by  any 
positive  act  of  his  own  make  her  happy.  If  his 
wife  was  happy,  she  was  naturally  happy,  or  made 
herself  so  in  spite  of  countless  drawbacks.  He  was, 
however,  a  good  husband  in  his  own  peculiar  way, 
and  in  his  own  way  only. 

If  exhausted  from  severe  and  long-continued 
133 


1^4  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

thought,  he  had  to  touch  the  earth  again  to  renew 
his  strength.  When  this  weariness  set  in  he  would 
stop  thought,  and  get  down  and  play  with  a  little 
dog  or  kitten  to  recover;  and  when  the  recovery 
came  he  would  push  it  aside  to  play  with  its  own 
tail.  He  treated  men  and  women  in  much  the  same 
way.  For  fashionable  society  he  had  a  marked  dis 
like,  although  he  appreciated  its  value  in  promoting 
the  welfare  of  a  man  ambitious  to  succeed  in  pol 
itics.  If  he  was  invited  out  to  dine  or  to  mingle  in 
some  social  gathering,  and  came  in  contact  with  the 
ladies,  he  treated  them  with  becoming  politeness; 
but  the  consciousness  of  his  shortcomings  as  a  soci 
ety  man  rendered  him  unusually  diffident,  and  at  the 
very  first  opportunity  he  would  have  the  men  sepa 
rated  from  their  ladies  and  crowded  close  around 
him  in  one  corner  of  the  parlor,  listening  to  one  of 
his  characteristic  stories.  That  a  lady  *  as  proud 
and  as  ambitious  to  exercise  the  rights  of  supremacy 
in  society  as  Mary  Todd  should  repent  of  her  mar 
riage  to  the  man  I  have  just  described  surely  rueed 
occasion  no  surprise  in  the  mind  of  any  one.  Both 
she  and  the  man  whose  hand  she  accepted  acted 
along  the  lines  of  human  conduct,  and  both  reaped 
the  bitter  harvest  of  conjugal  infelicity.  In  deal 
ing  with  Mr.  Lincoln's  home  life  perhaps  I  am 
revealing  an  element  of  his  character  that  has  here- 


*  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  decidedly  pro-slavery  in  her  views.  One  day 
she  was  invited  to  take  a  ride  with  a  neighboring  family,  some  of  whose 
members  still  reside  in  Springfield.  "If  ever  my  husband  dies," 
she  ejaculated  during  the  ride,  "his  spirit  will  never  find  me  living 
outside  the  limits  of  a  slave  State." 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 


'35 


tofore  been  kept  from  the  world ;  but  in  doing  so  I 
feel  sure  I  am  treading  on  no  person's  toes,  for  all 
the  actors  in  this  domestic  drama  are  dead,  and  the 
world  seems  ready  to  hear  the  facts.  As  his  married 
life,  in  the  opinion  of  all  his  friends,  exerted  a  pecul 
iar  influence  over  Mr.  Lincoln's  political  career  there 
can  be  no  impropriety,  I  apprehend,  in  throwing 
the  light  on  it  now.  Mrs.  Lincoln's  disposition  and 
nature  have  been  dwelt  upon  in  another  chapter, 
and  enough  has  been  told  to  show  that  one  of  her 
greatest  misfortunes  was  her  inability  to  control  her 
temper.  Admit  that,  and  everything  can  be  ex 
plained.  However  cold  and  abstracted  her  husband 
may  have  appeared  to  others,  however  impressive, 
when  aroused,  may  have  seemed  his  indignation  in 
public,  he  never  gave  vent  to  his  feelings  at  home. 
He  always  meekly  accepted  as  final  the  authority 
of  his  wife  in  all  matters  of  domestic  concern.* 
This  may  explain  somewhat  the  statement  of 
Judge  Davis  that,  "  as  a  general  rule,  when  all  the 
lawyers  of  a  Saturday  evening  would  go  home  and 
see  their  families  and  friends,  Lincoln  would  find 
some  excuse  and  refuse  to  go.  We  said  nothing, 
but  it  seemed  to  us  all  he  was  not  domestically 
happy."  He  exercised  no  government  of  any  kind 
over  his  household.  His  children  did  much  as 

*  One  day  a  man  making  some  improvements  in  Lincoln's  yard 
suggested  to  Mrs.  Lincoln  the  propriety  of  cutting  down  one  of  the 
trees,  to  which  she  willingly  assented.  Before  doing  so,  however, 
the  man  came  down  to  our  office  and  consulted  Lincoln  himself 
about  it.  "What  did  Mrs.  Lincoln  say?"  enquired  the  latter. 
"  She  consented  to  have  it  taken  away."  "  Then,  in  God's  name," 
exclaimed  Lincoln,  "cut  it  down  to  the  roots !" 
33 


1 36  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

they  pleased.  Many  of  their  antics  he  approved, 
and  he  restrained  them  in  nothing.  He  never 
reproved  them  or  gave  them  a  fatherly  frown. 
He  was  the  most  indulgent  parent  I  have  ever 
known.  He  was  in  the  habit,  when  at  home  on 
Sunday,  of  bringing  his  two  boys,  Willie  and 
Thomas — or  "  Tad  " — down  to  the  office  to  remain 
while  his  wife  attended  church.  He  seldom  accom 
panied  her  there.  The  boys  were  absolutely  unre 
strained  in  their  amusement.  If  they  pulled  down 
all  the  books  from  the  shelves,  bent  the  points  of 
all  the  pens,  overturned  inkstands,  scattered  law- 
papers  over  the  floor,  or  threw  the  pencils  into  the 
spittoon,  it  never  disturbed  the  serenity  of  their  fa 
ther's  good-nature.  Frequently  absorbed  in  thought, 
he  never  observed  their  mischievous  but  destructive 
pranks — as  his  unfortunate  partner  did,  who  thought 
much,  but  said  nothing — and,  even  if  brought  to  his 
attention,  he  virtually  encouraged  their  repetition 
by  declining  to  show  any  substantial  evidence  of 
parental  disapproval.  After  church  was  over  the 
boys  and  their  father,  climbing  down  the  office  stairs, 
ruefully  turned  their  steps  homeward.  They  min 
gled  with  the  throngs  of  well-dressed  people  return 
ing  from  church,  the  majority  of  whom  might  well 
have  wondered  if  the  trio  they  passed  were  going 
to  a  fireside  where  love  and  white-winged  peace 
reigned  supreme.  A  near  relative  of  Mrs.  Lincoln, 
in  explanation  of  the  unhappy  condition  of  things 
in  that  lady's  household,  offered  this  suggestion: 
"  Mrs.  Lincoln  came  of  the  best  stock,  and  was 
raised  like  a  lady.  Her  husband  was  her  opposite, 


THE  LINCOLN  RESIDENCE,  SPRINGFIELD, 

Photographed  about  1870. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  1 37 

in  origin,  in  education,  in  breeding,  in  everything ; 
and  it  is  therefore  quite  natural  that  she  should 
complain  if  he  answered  the  door-bell  himself 
instead  of  sending  the  servant  to  do  so  ;  neither  is 
she  to  be  condemned  if,  as  you  say,  she  raised 
'  merry  war '  because  he  persisted  in  using  his  own 
knife  in  the  butter,  instead  of  the  silver-handled 
one  intended  for  that  purpose."  *  Such  want  of 
social  polish  on  the  part  of  her  husband  of  course 
gave  Mrs.  Lincoln  great  offense,  and  therefore  in 
commenting  on  it  she  cared  neither  for  time  nor 
place.  Her  frequent  outbursts  of  temper  precipi 
tated  many  an  embarrassment  from  which  Lincoln 
with  great  difficulty  extricated  himself. 

Mrs.  Lincoln,  on  account  of  her  peculiar  nature, 
could  not  long  retain  a  servant  in  her  employ.  The 
sea  was  never  so  placid  but  that  a  breeze  would 
ruffle  its  waters.  She  loved  show  and  attention, 
and  if,  when  she  glorified  her  family  descent  or  in 
dulged  in  one  of  her  strange  outbreaks,  the  servant 
could  simulate  absolute  obsequiousness  or  had  tact 
enough  to  encourage  her  social  pretensions,  Mrs. 

*  A  lady  relative  who  lived  for  two  years  with  the  Lincolns  told  me 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  the  habit  of  lying  on  the  floor  with  the  back 
of  a  chair  for  a  pillow  when  he  read.  One  evening,  when  in  this  po 
sition  in  the  hall,  a  knock  was  heard  at  the  front  door  and  although 
in  his  shirt-sleeves  he  answered  the  call.  Two  ladies  were  at  the 
door  whom  he  invited  into  the  parlor,  notifying  them  in  his  open  fa 
miliar  way,  that  he  would  "  trot  the  women  folks  out."  Mrs.  Lincoln 
from  an  adjoining  room  witnessed  the  ladies'  entrance  and  overheard 
her  husband's  jocose  expression.  Her  indignation  was  so  instanta 
neous  she  made  the  situation  exceedingly  interesting  for  him,  and  he 
was  glad  to  retreat  from  the  mansion.  He  did  not  return  till  very 
late  at  night  and  then  slipped  quietly  in  at  a  rear  door. 


I3  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

Lincoln  was  for  the  time  her  firmest  friend.  One 
servant,  who  adjusted  herself  to  suit  the  lady's  ca 
pricious  ways,  lived  with  the  family  for  several  years. 
She  told  me  that  at  the  time  of  the  debate  be 
tween  Douglas  and  Lincoln  she  often  heard  the  lat 
ter' s  wife  boast  that  she  would  yet  be  mistress  of 
the  White  House.  The  secret  of  her  ability  to  en 
dure  the  eccentricities  of  her  mistress  came  out  in 
the  admission  that  Mr.  Lincoln  gave  her  an  extra 
dollar  each  week  on  condition  that  she  would  brave 
whatever  storms  might  arise,  and  suffer  whatever 
might  befall  her,  without  complaint.  It  was  a  rather 
severe  condition,  but  she  lived  rigidly  up  to  her 
part  of  the  contract.  The  money  was  paid  secretly 
and  without  the  knowledge  of  Mrs.  Lincoln.  Fre 
quently,  after  tempestuous  scenes  between  the  mis 
tress  and  her  servant,  Lincoln  at  the  first  oppor 
tunity  would  place  his  hand  encouragingly  on  the 
latter's  shoulder  with  the  admonition,"  Mary,  keep 
up  your  courage."  It  may  not  be  without  interest 
to  add  that  the  servant  afterwards  married  a  man 
who  enlisted  in  the  army.  In  the  spring  of  1865 
his  wife  managed  to  reach  Washington  to  secure 
her  husband's  release  from  the  service.  After  some 
effort  she  succeeded  in  obtaining  an  interview  with 
the  President.  He  was  glad  to  see  her,  gave  her  a 
basket  of  fruit,  and  directed  her  to  call  the  next  day 
and  obtain  a  pass  through  the  lines  and  money  to 
buy  clothes  for  herself  and  children.  That  night  he 
was  assassinated. 

The  following  letter  to  the  editor  of  a  newspaper 
in   Springfield  will  serve  as  a  specimen  of  the  per- 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  1 39 

plexities  which  frequently  beset  Mr.  Lincoln  when 
his  wife  came  in  contact  with  others.  What  in  this 
instance  she  said  to  the  paper  carrier  we  do  not 
know;  we  can  only  intelligently  infer.  I  have 
no  personal  recollection  of  the  incident,  although 
I  knew  the  man  to  whom  it  was  addressed  quite  well. 
The  letter  only  recently  came  to  light.  I  insert  it 
without  further  comment. 

[Private.] 

"  SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  February  20, 1857. 

"JOHN  E.  ROSETTE,  Esq. 

"Dear  Sir: — Your  note  about  the  little  para 
graph  in  the  Republican  was  received  yesterday, 
since  which  time  I  have  been  too  unwell  to  notice 
it.  I  had  not  supposed  you  wrote  or  approved  it. 
The  whole  originated  in  mistake.  You  know  by 
the  conversation  with  me  that  I  thought  the  estab 
lishment  of  the  paper  unfortunate,  but  I  always 
expected  to  throw  no  obstacle  in  its  way,  and  to 
patronize  it  to  the  extent  of  taking  and  paying  for 
one  copy.  When  the  paper  was  brought  to  my 
house,  my  wife  said  to  me,  '  Now  are  you  going  to 
take  another  worthless  little  paper  ? '  I  said  to  her 
evasively,  '  I  have  not  directed  the  paper  to  be  left.' 
From  this,  in  my  absence,  she  sent  the  message  to 
the  carrier.  This  is  the  whole  story. 

"Yours  truly, 
"A.  LINCOLN." 

A  man  once  called  at  the  house  to  learn  why 
Mrs.  Lincoln  had  so  unceremoniously  discharged  his 
niece  from  her  employ.  Mrs.  Lincoln  met  him  at 
the  door,  and  being  somewhat  wrought  up,  gave 
vent  to  her  feelings,  resorting  to  such  violent  gest- 


I4O  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

ures  and  emphatic  language  that  the  man  was  glad 
to  beat  a  hasty  retreat.  He  at  once  started  out  to 
find  Lincoln,  determined  to  exact  from  him  proper 
satisfaction  for  his  wife's  action.  Lincoln  was 
entertaining  a  crowd  in  a  store  at  the  time.  The 
man,  still  laboring  under  some  agitation,  called  him 
to  the  door  and  made  the  demand.  Lincoln  lis 
tened  for  a  moment  to  his  story.  "  My  friend,"  he 
interrupted,  "  I  regret  to  hear  this,  but  let  me  ask 
you  in  all  candor,  can't  you  endure  for  a  few 
moments  what  I  have  had  as  my  daily  portion  for 
the  last  fifteen  years  ?  "  These  words  were  spoken  so 
mournfully  and  with  such  a  look  of  distress  that  the 
man  was  completely  disarmed.  It  was  a  case  that 
appealed  to  his  feelings.  Grasping  the  unfortunate 
husband's  hand,  he  expressed  in  no  uncertain  terms 
his  sympathy,  and  even  apologized  for  having 
approached  him.  He  said  no  more  about  the 
infuriated  wife,  and  Lincoln  afterward  had  no  better 
friend  in  Springfield. 

Mr.  Lincoln  never  had  a  confidant,  and  therefore 
never  unbosomed  himself  to  others.  He  never 
spoke  of  his  trials  to  me  or,  so  far  as  I  knew,  to  any 
of  his  friends.  It  was  a  great  burden  to  carry,  but 
he  bore  it  sadly  enough  and  without  a  murmur.  I 
could  always  realize  when  he  was  in  distress,  with 
out  being  told.  He  was  not  exactly  an  early  riser, 
that  is,  he  never  usually  appeared  at  the  office  till 
about  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning.  I  usually  pre 
ceded  him  an  hour.  Sometimes,  however,  he 
would  come  down  as  early  as  seven  o'clock — in 
fact,  on  one  occasion  I  remember  he  came  down 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  141 

before  daylight.  If,  on  arriving  at  the  office,  I  found 
him  in,  I  knew  instantly  that  a  breeze  had  sprung 
up  over  the  domestic  sea,  and  that  the  waters  were 
troubled.  He  would  either  be  lying  on  the  lounge 
looking  skyward,  or  doubled  up  in  a  chair  with  his 
feet  resting  on  the  sill  of  a  back  window.  He 
would  not  look  up  on  my  entering,  and  only 
answered  my  "  Good  morning  "  with  a  grunt.  I  at 
once  busied  myself  with  pen  and  paper,  or  ran 
through  the  leaves  of  some  book  ;  but  the  evidence 
of  his  melancholy  and  distress  was  so  plain,  and  his 
silence  so  significant,  that  I  would  grow  restless 
myself,  and  finding  some  excuse  to  go  to  the  court 
house  or  elsewhere,  would  leave  the  room. 

The  door  of  the  office  opening  into  a  narrow  hall 
way  was  half  glass,  with  a  curtain  on  it  working  on 
brass  rings  strung  on  wire.  As  I  passed  out  on 
these  occasions  I  would  draw  the  curtain  across  the 
glass,  and  before  I  reached  the  bottom  of  the  stairs 
I  could  hear  the  key  turn  in  the  lock,  and  Lincoln 
was  alone  in  his  gloom.  An  hour  in  the  clerk's 
office  at  the  court-house,  an  hour  longer  in  a  neigh 
boring  store  having  passed,  I  would  return.  By 
that  time  either  a  client  had  dropped  in  and  Lin 
coln  was  propounding  the  law,  or  else  the  cloud  of 
despondency  had  passed  away,  and  he  was  busy  in 
the  recital  of  an  Indiana  story  to  whistle  off  the 
recollections  of  the  morning's  gloom.  Noon  hav 
ing  arrived  I  would  depart  homeward  for  my 
dinner.  Returning  within  an  hour,  I  would  find 
him  still  in  the  office, — although  his  house  stood 
but  a  few  squares  away, — lunching  on  a  slice  of 


142  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

cheese  and  a  handful  of  crackers  which,  in  my 
absence,  he  had  brought  up  from  a  store  below. 
Separating  for  the  day  at  five  or  six  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  I  would  still  leave  him  behind,  either  sit- 
ting  on  a  box  at  the  foot  of  the  stairway,  enter 
taining  a  few  loungers,  or  killing  time  in  the  same 
way  on  the  court-house  steps.  A  light  in  the  office 
after  dark  attested  his  presence  there  till  late  along 
in  the  night,  when,  after  all  the  world  had  gone  to 
sleep,  the  tall  form  of  the  man  destined  to  be  the 
nation's  President  could  have  been  seen  strolling 
along  in  the  shadows  of  trees  and  buildings,  and 
quietly  slipping  in  through  the  door  of  a  modest 
frame  house,  which  it  pleased  the  world,  in  a  con 
ventional  way,  to  call  his  home. 

Some  persons  may  insist  that  this  picture  is  too 
nighly  colored.  If  so,  I  can  only  answer,  they  do 
not  know  the  facts.  The  majority  of  those  who 
have  a  personal  knowledge  of  them  are  persistent 
in  their  silence.  If  their  lips  could  be  opened  and 
all  could  be  known,  my  conclusions  and  statements, 
to  say  the  least  of  them,  would  be  found  to  be  fair, 
reasonable,  and  true.  A  few  words  more  as  to 
Lincoln's  domestic  history,  and  I  pass  to  a  different 
phase  of  his  life.  One  of  his  warmest  and  closest 
friends,  who  still  survives,  maintains  the  theory 
that,  after  all,  Lincoln's  political  ascendancy  and 
final  elevation  to  the  Presidency  were  due  more  to 
the  influence  of  his  wife  than  to  any  other  person 
or  cause.  "  The  fact,"  insists  this  friend,  "  that 
Mary  Todd,  by  her  turbulent  nature  and  unfortu 
nate  manner,  prevented  her  husband  from  becom- 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  143 

ing  a  domestic  man,  operated  largely  in  his  favor ; 
for  he  was  thereby  kept  out  in  the  world  of  busi 
ness  and  politics.  Instead  of  spending  his  even 
ings  at  home,  reading  the  papers  and  warming  his 
toes  at  his  own  fireside,  he  was  constantly  out  with 
the  common  people,  was  mingling  with  the  politi 
cians,  discussing  public  questions  with  the  farmers 
who  thronged  the  offices  in  the  court-house  and 
state  house,  and  exchanging  views  with  the  loungers 
who  surrounded  the  stove  of  winter  evenings  in  the 
village  store.  The  result  of  this  continuous  con 
tact  with  the  world  was,  that  he  was  more  thor 
oughly  known  than  any  other  man  in  his  com 
munity.  His  wife,  therefore,  was  one  of  the  unin 
tentional  means  of  his  promotion.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  had  married  some  less  ambitious  but  more 
domestic  woman,  some  honest  farmer's  quiet 
daughter, — one  who  would  have  looked  up  to  and 
worshipped  him  because  he  uplifted  her, — the  result 
might  have  been  different.  For,  although  it 
doubtless  would  have  been  her  pride  to  see  that  he 
had  clean  clothes  whenever  he  needed  them  ;  that 
his  slippers  were  always  in  their  place ;  that  he  was 
warmly  clad  and  had  plenty  to  eat ;  and,  although 
the  privilege  of  ministering  to  his  every  wish  and 
whim  might  have  been  to  her  a  pleasure  rather 
than  a  duty ;  yet  I  fear  he  would  have  been  buried 
in  the  pleasures  of  a  loving  home,  and  the  country 
would  never  have  had  Abraham  Lincoln  for  its 
President." 

In  her  domestic  troubles  I  have  always  sympa 
thized  with   Mrs.   Lincoln.      The  world  does    not 


144  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

know  what  she  bore,  or  how  ill-adapted  she  was 
to  bear  it.  Her  fearless,  witty,  and  austere  nature 
shrank  instinctively  from  association  with  the  calm, 
imperturbable,  and  simple  ways  of  her  thoughtful 
and  absent-minded  husband.  Besides,  who  knows 
but  she  may  have  acted  out  in  her  conduct  toward 
her  husband  the  laws  of  human  revenge  ?  The 
picture  of  that  eventful  evening  in  1841,  when  she 
stood  at  the  Edwards  mansion  clad  in  her  bridal 
robes,  the  feast  prepared  and  the  guests  gathered, 
and  when  the  bridegroom  came  not,  may  have 
been  constantly  before  her,  and  prompted  her  to  a 
course  of  action  which  kept  in  the  background  the 
better  elements  of  her  nature.  In  marrying  Lin 
coln  she  did  not  look  so  far  into  the  future  as  Mary 
Owens,  who  declined  his  proposal  because  "  he  was 
deficient  in  those  little  links  which  make  up  the 
chain  of  woman's  happiness."  * 

*Mrs.  Lincoln  died  at  the  residence  of  her  sister  Mrs.  Ninian  W. 
Edwards,  in  Springfield,  July  16,  1882.  Her  physician  during  her 
last  illness  says  this  of  her  :  "  In  the  late  years  of  her  life  certain 
mental  peculiarities  were  developed  which  finally  culminated  in  a 
slight  apoplexy,  producing  paralysis,  of  which  she  died.  Among  the 
peculiarities  alluded  to,  one  of  the  most  singular  was  the  habit  she 
had  during  the  last  year  or  so  of  her  life  of  immuring  herself  in  a 
perfectly  dark  room  and,  for  light,  using  a  small  candle-light,  even 
when  the  sun  was  shining  bright  out-of-doors.  No  urging  would 
induce  her  to  go  out  into  the  fresh  air.  Another  peculiarity  was  the 
accumulation  of  large  quantities  of  silks  and  dress  goods  in  trunks 
and  by  the  cart-load,  which  she  never  used  and  which  accumulated 
until  it  was  really  feared  that  the  floor  of  the  store-room  would  give 
way.  She  was  bright  and  sparkling  in  conversation,  and  her  memory 
remained  singularly  good  up  to  the  very  close  of  her  life.  Her  face 
was  animated  and  pleasing  ;  and  to  me  she  was  always  an  interesting 
woman  ;  and  while  the  whole  world  was  finding  fault  with  her  tern- 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  145 

By  reason  of  his  practical  turn  of  mind  Mr.  Lin 
coln  never  speculated  any  more  in  the  scientific  and 
philosophical  than  he  did  in  the  financial  world. 
He  never  undertook  to  fathom  the  intricacies  of 
psychology  and  metaphysics.*  Investigation  into 
first  causes,  abstruse  mental  phenomena,  the  science 
of  being,  he  brushed  aside  as  trash — mere  scientific 
absurdities.  He  discovered  through  experience 
that  his  mind,  like  the  minds  of  other  men,  had  its 
limitations,  and  hence  he  economized  his  forces  and 
his  time  by  applying  his  powers  in  the  field  of  the 
practical.  Scientifically  regarded  he  was  a  realist  as 
opposed  to  an  idealist,  a  sensationist  as  opposed  to 
an  intuitionist,  a  materialist  as  opposed  to  a 
spiritualist. 

There  was  more  or  less  superstition  in  his  nature, 
and,  although  he  may  not  have  believed  im 
plicitly  in  the  signs  of  his  many  dreams,  he  was 
constantly  endeavoring  to  unravel  them.  His  mind 
was  readily  impressed  with  some  of  the  most  absurd 
superstitions.  His  visit  to  the  Voodoo  fortune- 

per  and  disposition,  it  was  clear  to  me  that  the  trouble  was  really  a 
cerebral  disease." — Dr.  Thomas  W.  Dresser,  letter,  January  3,  1889, 
MS. 

*  "  He  was  contemplative  rather  than  speculative.  He  wanted 
something  solid  to  rest  upon,  and  hence  his  bias  for  mathematics  and 
the  physical  sciences.  He  bestowed  more  attention  on  them  than 
upon  metaphysical  speculations.  I  have  heard  him  descant  upon  the 
problem  whether  a  ball  discharged  from  a  gun  in  a  horizontal  posi 
tion  would  be  longer  in  reaching  the  ground  than  one  dropped  at  the 
instant  of  discharge  from  the  muzzle.  He  said  it  always  appeared 
to  him  that  they  would  both  reach  the  ground  at  the  same  time,  even 
before  he  had  read  the  philosophical  explanation." — Joseph  Gillespie, 
letter,  December  8,  1866,  MS. 


146  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

teller  in  New  Orleans  in  1831  ;  his  faith  in  the 
virtues  of  the  mad-stone,  when  he  took  his  son 
Robert  to  Terre  Haute,  Indiana,  to  be  cured  of  the 
bite  of  a  rabid  dog ;  and  the  strange  double  image 
of  himself  which  he  told  his  secretary,  John  Hay,  he 
saw  reflected  in  a  mirror  just  after  his  election  in 
1860,  strongly  attest  his  inclination  to  superstition. 
He  held  most  firmly  to  the  doctrine  of  fatalism  all 
his  life.  His  wife,  after  his  death,  told  me  what  I 
already  knew,  that  "  his  only  philosophy  was,  what  is 
to  be  will  be,  and  no  prayers  of  ours  can  reverse  the 
decree."  He  always  contended  that  he  was  doomed 
to  a  sad  fate,  and  he  repeatedly  said  to  me  when  we 
were  alone  in  our  office:  "  I  am  sure  I  shall  meet 
with  some  terrible  end."  In  proof  of  his  strong 
leaning  towards  fatalism  he  once  quoted  the  case 
of  Brutus  and  Caesar,  arguing  that  the  former  was 
forced  by  laws  and  conditions  over  which  he  had  no 
control  to  kill  the  latter,  and,  vice  versd,  that  the 
latter  was  specially  created  to  be  disposed  of  by  the 
former.  This  superstitious  view  of  life  ran  through 
his  being  like  the  thin  blue  vein  through  the  whitest 
marble,  giving  the  eye  rest  from  the  weariness  of 
continued  unvarying  color.  * 

For  many  years  I  subscribed  for  and  kept  on  our 
office  table  the  Westminster  and  Edinburgh  Review 
and  a  number  of  other  English  periodicals.  Besides 
them  I  purchased  the  works  of  Spencer,  Darwin, 

*  I  have  heard  him  frequently  quote  the  couplet, 

"  There's  a  divinity  that  shapes  our  ends, 
Rough-hew  them  how  we  will." 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  147 

and  the  utterances  of  other  English  scientists,  all  of 
which  I  devoured  with  great  relish.  I  endeavored, 
but  had  little  success  in  inducing  Lincoln  to  read 
them.  Occasionally  he  would  snatch  one  up  and 
peruse  it  for  a  little  while,  but  he  soon  threw  it  down 
with  the  suggestion  that  it  was  entirely  too  heavy 
for  an  ordinary  mind  to  digest.*  A  gentleman  in 
Springfield  gave  him  a  book  called,  I  believe, 
"  Vestiges  of  Creation,"  which  interested  him  so 
much  that  he  read  it  through.  The  volume  was  pub- 

*  In  1856  I  purchased  in  New  York  a  life  of  Edmund  Burke.  I 
have  forgotten  now  who  the  author  was,  but  I  remember  I  read  it 
through  in  a  short  time.  One  morning  Lincoln  came  into  the  office 
and,  seeing  the  book  in  my  hands,  enquired  what  I  was  reading.  I 
told  him,  at  the  same  time  observing  that  it  was  an  excellent  work 
and  handing  the  book  over  to  him.  Taking  it  in  his  hand  he  threw 
himself  down  on  the  office  sofa  and  hastily  ran  over  its  pages,  read 
ing  a  little  here  and  there.  At  last  he  closed  and  threw  it  on  the 
table  with  the  exclamation,  "  No,  I've  read  enough  of  it.  It's  like 
all  the  others.  Biographies  as  generally  written  are  not  only  mis 
leading,  but  false.  The  author  of  this  life  of  Burke  makes  a  won 
derful  hero  out  of  his  subject.  He  magnifies  his  perfections — if  he 
had  any — and  suppresses  his  imperfections.  He  is  so  faithful  in  his 
zeal  and  so  lavish  in  praise  of  his  every  act  that  one  is  almost  driven 
to  believe  that  Burke  never  made  a  mistake  or  a  failure  in  his  life." 
He  lapsed  into  a  brown  study,  but  presently  broke  out  again,  "  Billy, 
I've  wondered  why  book-publishers  and  merchants  don't  have  blank 
biographies  on  their  shelves,  always  ready  for  an  emergency;  so 
that,  if  a  man  happens  to  die,  his  heirs  or  his  friends,  if  they  wish  to 
perpetuate  his  memory,  can  purchase  one  already  written,  but  with 
blanks.  These  blanks  they  can  at  their  pleasure  fill  up  with  rosy 
sentences  full  of  high-sounding  praise.  In  most  instances  they  com 
memorate  a  lie,  and  cheat  posterity  out  of  the  truth.  History," 
he  concluded,  "is  not  history  unless  it  is  the  truth."  This  em 
phatic  avowal  of  sentiment  from  Mr.  Lincoln  not  only  fixes  his  esti 
mate  of  ordinary  biography,  but  is  my  vindication  in  advance  if 
assailed  for  telling  the  truth. 


148  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

lished  in  Edinburgh,  and  undertook  to  demonstrate 
the  doctrine  of  development  or  evolution.  The 
treatise  interested  him  greatly,  and  he  was  deeply 
impressed  with  the  notion  of  the  so-called 
"  universal  law" — evolution ;  he  did  not  extend 
greatly  his  researches,  but  by  continued  think 
ing  in  a  single  channel  seemed  to  grow  into  a 
warm  advocate  of  the  new  doctrine.  Beyond  what 
I  have  stated  he  made  no  further  investigation  into 
the  realm  of  philosophy.  "  There  are  no  accidents," 
he  said  one  day,  "  in  my  philosophy.  Every  effect 
must  have  its  cause.  The  past  is  the  cause  of  the 
present,  and  the  present  will  be  the  cause  of  the 
future.  All  these  are  links  in  the  endless  chain 
stretching  from  the  finite  to  the  infinite."  From 
what  has  been  said  it  would  follow  logically  that  he 
did  not  believe,  except  in  a  very  restricted  sense, 
in  the  freedom  of  the  will.  We  often  argued  the 
question,  I  taking  the  opposite  view  ;  he  changed 
the  expression,  calling  it  the  freedom  of  the  mind, 
and  insisted  that  man  always  acted  from  a  motive. 
I  once  contended  that  man  was  free  and  could  act 
without  a  motive.  He  smiled  at  my  philosophy, 
and  answered  that  it  was  impossible,  because  the 
motive  was  born  before  the  man." 

The  foregoing  thoughts  are  prefatory  to  the 
much-mooted  question  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  religious 
belief.  For  what  I  have  heretofore  said  on  this  sub 
ject,  both  in  public  lectures  and  in  letters  which  have 
frequently  found  their  way  into  the  newspapers, 
I  have  been  freely  and  sometimes  bitterly  assailed, 
but  I  do  not  intend  now  to  reopen  the  discussion 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  149 

or  to  answer  the  many  persons  who  have  risen  up 
and  asked  to  measure  swords  with  me.  I  merely 
purpose  to  state  the  bare  facts,  expressing  no  opinion 
of  my  own,  and  allowing  each  and  every  one  to 
put  his  or  her  construction  on  them. 

Inasmuch  as  he  was  so  often  a  candidate  for  pub 
lic  office  Mr.  Lincoln  said  as  little  about  his  religi 
ous  opinions  as  possible,  especially  if  he  failed  to 
coincide  with  the  orthodox  world.  In  illustration 
of  his  religious  code  I  once  heard  him  say  that 
it  was  like  that  of  an  old  man  named  Glenn,  in 
Indiana,  whom  he  heard  speak  at  a  church  meeting, 
and  who  said :  "  When  I  do  good  I  feel  good, 
when  I  do  bad  I  feel  bad,  and  that's  my  religion." 
In  1834,  while  still  living  in  New  Salem  and  before 
he  became  a  lawyer,  he  was  surrounded  by  a  class 
of  people  exceedingly  liberal  in  matters  of 
religion.  Volney's  "  Ruins"  and  Paine's  "  Age 
of  Reason"  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  and 
furnished  food  for  the  evening's  discussion  in 
the  tavern  and  village  store.  Lincoln  read  both 
these  books  and  thus  assimilated  them  into  his  own 
being.  He  prepared  an  extended  essay — called  by 
many,  a  book — in  which  he  made  an  argument 
against  Christianity,  striving  to  prove  that  the  Bible 
was  not  inspired,  and  therefore  not  God's  revela 
tion,  and  that  Jesus  Christ  was  not  the  son  of 
God.  The  manuscript  containing  these  auda 
cious  and  comprehensive  propositions  he  intended 
to  have  published  or  given  a  wide  circulation 
in  some  other  way.  He  carried  it  to  the 
store,  where  it  was  read  and  freely  discussed.  His 


I  50  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

friend  and  employer,  Samuel  Hill,  was  among  the 
listeners,  and,  seriously  questioning  the  propriety  of 
a  promising  young  man  like  Lincoln  fathering  such 
unpopular  notions,  he  snatched  the  manuscript  from 
his  hands  and  thrust  it  into  the  stove.  The  book 
went  up  in  flames,  and  Lincoln's  political  future  was 
secure.  But  his  infidelity  and  his  sceptical  views 
were  not  diminished.  He  soon  removed  to  Spring 
field,  where  he  attracted  considerable  notice  by  his 
rank  doctrine.  Much  of  what  he  then  said  may  prop 
erly  be  credited  to  the  impetuosity  and  exuberance 
of  youth.  One  of  his  closest  friends,  whose  name  is 
withheld,  narrating  scenes  and  reviewing  discussions 
that  in  1838  took  place  in  the  office  of  the  county 
clerk,  says  :  "  Sometimes  Lincoln  bordered  on  athe 
ism.  He  went  far  that  way,  and  shocked  me.  I  was 
then  a  young  man,  and  believed  what  my  good 
mother  told  me.  .  .  .  He  would  come  into  the  clerk's 
office  where  I  and  some  young  men  were  writing 
and  staying,  and  would  bring  the  Bible  with  him ; 
would  read  a  chapter  and  argue  against  it.  ...  Lin 
coln  was  enthusiastic  in  his  infidelity.  As  he  grew 
older  he  grew  more  discreet ;  didn't  talk  much  be 
fore  strangers  about  his  religion  ;  but  to  friends,  close 
and  bosom  ones,  he  was  always  open  and  avowed, 
fair  and  honest ;  to  strangers,  he  held  them  off 
from  policy."  John  T.  Stuart,  who  was  Lin 
coln's  first  partner,  substantially  endorses  the  above. 
"  He  was  an  avowed  and  open  infidel,"  declares 
Stuart,  "  and  sometimes  bordered  on  atheism ; 
....  went  further  against  Christian  beliefs  and 
doctrines  aad  principles  than  any  man  I  ever  heard  ; 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  1 5  i 

he  shocked  me.  I  don't  remember  the  exact  line 
of  his  argument;  suppose  it  was  against  the  inherent 
defects,  so-called,  of  the  Bible,  and  on  grounds  of 
reason.  Lincoln  always  denied  that  Jesus  was  the 
Christ  of  God — denied  that  Jesus  was  the  son 
of  God  as  understood  and  maintained  by  the  Chris 
tian  Church."  David  Davis  tells  us  this  :  "The  idea 
that  Lincoln  talked  to  a  stranger  about  his  religion 
or  religious  views,  or  made  such  speeches  and  re 
marks  about  it  as  are  published,  is  to  me  absurd.  I 
knew  the  man  so  well ;  he  was  the  most  reticent, 
secretive  man  I  ever  saw  or  expect  to  see.  He  had 
no  faith,  in  the  Christian  sense  of  the  term — had 
faith  in  laws,  principles,  causes  and  effects."  An 
other  man  *  testifies  as  follows:  "  Mr.  Lincoln  told 
me  that  he  was  a  kind  of  immortalist ;  that  he 
never  could  bring  himself  to  believe  in  eternal 
punishment ;  that  man  lived  but  a  little  while 
here  ;  and  that  if  eternal  punishment  were  man's 
doom,  he  should  spend  that  little  life  in  vigilant 
and  ceaseless  preparation  by  never-ending  prayer." 
Another  intimate  friend f  furnishes  this:  "In 
my  intercourse  with  Mr.  Lincoln  I  learned  that 
he  believed  in  a  Creator  of  all  things,  who  had 
neither  beginning  nor  end,  possessing  all  power 
and  wisdom,  established  a  principle  in  obedience  to 
which  worlds  move  and  are  upheld,  and  animal  and 
vegetable  life  come  into  existence.  A  reason  he  gave 
for  his  belief  was  that  in  view  of  the  order  and  har 
mony  of  all  nature  which  we  behold,  it  would  have 
been  more  miraculous  to  have  come  about  by 

*  William  H.  Hannah.  t  I.  W.  Keys. 

34 


I  52  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

chance  than  to  have  been  created  and  arranged  by 
some  great  thinking  power.  As  to  the  Christian 
theory  that  Christ  is  God  or  equal  to  the  Creator,  he 
said  that  it  had  better  be  taken  for  granted ;  for  by 
the  test  of  reason  we  might  become  infidels  on  that 
subject,  for  evidence  of  Christ's  divinity  came  to  us 
in  a  somewhat  doubtful  shape ;  but  that  the  system 
of  Christianity  was  an  ingenious  one  at  least,  and 
perhaps  was  calculated  to  do  good."  Jesse  W. 
Fell,  to  whom  Lincoln  first  confided  the  details 
of  his  biography,  furnishes  a  more  elaborate  account 
of  the  latter's  religious  views  than  anyone  else.  In 
a  statement  made  September  22,  1870,  Fell  says:  "  If 
there  were  any  traits  of  character  that  stood  out  in 
bold  relief  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Lincoln  they  were 
those  of  truth  and  candor.  He  was  utterly  incapable 
of  insincerity  or  professing  views  on  this  or  any 
other  subject  he  did  not  entertain.  Knowing  such 
to  be  his  true  character,  that  insincerity,  much  more 
duplicity,  were  traits  wholly  foreign  to  his  nature, 
many  of  his  old  friends  were  not  a  little  surprised 
at  finding  in  some  of  the  biographies  of  this  great 
man  statements  concerning  his  religious  opinions  so 
utterly  at  variance  with  his  known  sentiments.  True, 
he  may  have  changed  or  modified  these  sentiments* 

*  "  EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  WASHINGTON,  May  27,  1865. 
"  FRIEND  HERNDON  : 

"  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  to  my  knowledge  in  any  way  change  his 
religious  ideas,  opinions,  or  beliefs  from  the  time  he  left  Springfield 
to  the  day  of  his  death.  I  do  not  know  just  what  they  were,  never 
having  heard  him  explain  them  in  detail ;  but  I  am  very  sure  he 
gave  no  outward  indication  of  his  mind  having  undergone  any  change 
in  that  regard  while  here.  "  Yours  truly, 

"JNO.  G.  NICOLAY." 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  1 5  3 

after  his  removal  from  among  us,  though  this  is 
hardly  reconcilable  with  the  history  of  the  man,  and 
his  entire  devotion  to  public  matters  during  hte  four 
years'  residence  at  the  national  capital.  It  is  pos 
sible,  however,  that  this  may  be  the  proper  solution 
of  this  conflict  of  opinions  ;  or  it  may  be  that,  with 
no  intention  on  the  part  of  any  one  to  mislead  the 
public  mind,  those  who  have  represented  him  as 
believing  in  the  popular  theological  views  of  the 
times  may  have  misapprehended  him,  as  experience 
shows  to  be  quite  common  where  no  special  effort 
has  been  made  to  attain  critical  accuracy  on  a 
subject  of  this  nature.  This  is  the  more  probable 
from  the  well-known  fact,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  seldom 
communicated  to  any  one  his  views  on  this  subject ; 
but  be  this  as  it  may,  I  have  no  hesitation  whatever 
in  saying  that  whilst  he  held  many  opinions  in 
common  with  the  great  mass  of  Christian  believers, 
he  did  not  believe  in  what  are  regarded  as  the 
orthodox  or  evangelical  views  of  Christianity. 

"On  the  innate  depravity  of  man,  the  character 
and  office  of  the  great  Head  of  the  Church,  the 
atonement,  the  infallibility  of  the  written  revela 
tion,  the  performance  of  miracles,  the  nature  and 
design  of  present  and  future  rewards  and  punish 
ments  (as  they  are  popularly  called),  and  many 
other  subjects  he  held  opinions  utterly  at  variance 
with  what  are  usually  taught  in  the  Church.  I 
should  say  that  his  expressed  views  on  these  and 
kindred  topics  were  such  as,  in  the  estimation  of 
most  believers,  would  place  him  outside  the 
Christian  pale.  Yet,  to  my  mind,  such  was  not  the 


1 54  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

true  position,  since  his  principles  and  practices  and 
the  spirit  of  his  whole  life  were  of  the  very  kind 
we  universally  agree  to  call  Christian ;  and  I  think 
this  conclusion  is  in  no  wise  affected  by  the  circum 
stance  that  he  never  attached  himself  to  any  religi 
ous  society  whatever. 

11  His  religious  views  were  eminently  practical,  and 
are  summed  up,  as  I  think,  in  these  two  proposi 
tions  :  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  and  the  brotherhood 
of  man.  He  fully  believed  in  a  superintending  and 
overruling  Providence  that  guides  and  controls  the 
operations  of  the  world,  but  maintained  that  law 
and  order,  and  not  their  violation  or  suspension, 
are  the  appointed  means  by  which  this  Providence 
is  exercised.* 

"  I  will  not  attempt  any  specification  of  either  his 
belief  or  disbelief  on  various  religious  topics,  as 
derived  from  conversations  with  him  at  different 
times  during  a  considerable  period ;  but  as  convey 
ing  a  general  view  of  his  religious  or  theological 
opinions,  will  state  the  following  facts.  Some  eight 
or  ten  years  prior  to  his  death,  in  conversing  with 
him  upon  this  subject,  the  writer  took  occasion  to 
refer,  in  terms  of  approbation,  to  the  sermons  and 
writings  generally  of  Dr.  W.  E.  Channing  ;  and,  find- 

*  "A  convention  of  preachers  held,  I  think,  at  Philadelphia,  passed 
a  resolution  asking  him  to  recommend  to  Congress  an  amendment 
to  the  Constitution  directly  recognizing  the  existence  of  God. 
The  first  draft  of  his  message  prepared  after  this  resolution  was 
sent  him  did  contain  a  paragraph  calling  the  attention  of  Congress 
to  the  subject.  When  I  assisted  him  in  reading  the  proof  he 
struck  it  out,  remarking  that  he  had  not  made  up  his  mind  as  to 
its  propriety." — MS.  letter,  John  D.  Defrees,  December  4,  1866. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  1 5  5 

ing  he  was  considerably  interested  in  the  statement 
I  made  of  the  opinions  held  by  that  author,  I  pro 
posed  to  present  him  (Lincoln)  a  copy  of  Channing's 
entire  works,  which  I  soon  after  did.  Subsequently 
the  contents  of  these  volumes,  together  with  the 
writings  of  Theodore  Parker,  furnished  him,  as  he 
informed  me,  by  his  friend  and  law  partner,  William 
H.  Herndon,  became  naturally  the  topics  of  con 
versation  with  us  ;  and,  though  far  from  believing 
there  was  an  entire  harmony  of  views  on  his  part 
with  either  of  those  authors,  yet  they  were  gener 
ally  much  admired  and  approved  by  him. 

"  No  religious  views  with  him  seemed  to  find  any 
favor  except  of  the  practical  and  rationalistic  order  ; 
and  if,  from  my  recollections  on  this  subject,  I  was 
called  upon  to  designate  an  author  whose  views 
most  nearly  represented  Mr.  Lincoln's  on  this  sub 
ject,  I  would  say  that  author  was  Theodore  Parker." 

The  last  witness  to  testify  before  this  case  is  sub 
mitted  to  the  reader  is  no  less  a  person  than  Mrs. 
Lincoln  herself.  In  a  statement  made  at  a  time  and 
under  circumstances  detailed  in  a  subsequent  chap 
ter  she  said  this :  "  Mr.  Lincoln  had  no  faith  and 
no  hope  in  the  usual  acceptation  of  those  words. 
He  never  joined  a  Church  ;  but  still,  as  I  believe,  he 
was  a  religious  man  by  nature.  He  first  seemed  to 
think  about  the  subject  when  our  boy  Willie  died, 
and  then  more  than  ever  about  the  time  he  went  to 
Gettysburg ;  but  it  was  a  kind  of  poetry  in  his 
nature,  and  he  was  never  a  technical  Christian." 

No  man  had  a  stronger  or  firmer  faith  in  Provi 
dence — God — than  Mr.  Lincoln,  but  the  continued 


I 56  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

use  by  him  late  in  life  of  the  word  God  must  not  be 
interpreted  to  mean  that  he  believed  in  a  personal 
God.  In  1 854  he  asked  me  to  erase  the  word  God 
from  a  speech  which  I  had  written  and  read  to  him 
for  criticism  because  my  language  indicated  a  per 
sonal  God,  whereas  he  insisted  no  such  personality 
ever  existed. 

My  own  testimony,  however,  in  regard  to  Mr. 
Lincoln's  religious  views  may  perhaps  invite  discus- 
sion.  The  world  has  always  insisted  on  making  an 
orthodox  Christian  of  him,  and  to  analyze  his  say 
ings  or  sound  his  beliefs  is  but  to  break  the  idol. 
It  only  remains  to  say  that,  whether  orthodox  or 
not,  he  believed  in  God  and  immortality ;  and  even 
if  he  questioned  the  existence  of  future  eternal  pun 
ishment  he  hoped  to  find  a  rest  from  trouble  and 
a  heaven  beyond  the  grave.  If  at  any  time  in  his 
life  he  was  sceptical  of  the  divine  origin  of  the 
Bible  he  ought  not  for  that  reason  to  be  con 
demned  ;  for  he  accepted  the  practical  precepts  of 
that  great  book  as  binding  alike  upon  his  head  and 
his  conscience.  The  benevolence  of  his  impulses, 
the  seriousness  of  his  convictions,  and  the  nobility 
of  his  character  are  evidences  unimpeachable  that 
his  soul  was  ever  filled  with  the  exalted  purity  and 
sublime  faith  of  natural  religion. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

THE  result  of  the  campaign  of  1858  wrought 
more  disaster  to  Lincoln's  finances  than  to  his  polit 
ical  prospects.  The  loss  of  over  six  months  from 
his  business,  and  the  expenses  of  the  canvass,  made 
a  severe  drain  on  his  personal  income.  He  was  anx 
ious  to  get  back  to  the  law  once  more  and  earn  a 
little  ready  money.  A  letter  written  about  this 
time  to  his  friend  Norman  B.  Judd,  Chairman  of 
the  Republican  State  Committee,  will  serve  to 
throw  some  light  on  the  situation  he  found  himself 
in.  "I  have  been  on  expenses  so  long,  without 
earning  anything,"  he  says,  "  that  I  am  absolutely 
without  money  now  for  even  household  expenses. 
Still,  if  you  can  put  in  $250  for  me  towards  dis 
charging  the  debt  of  the  committee,  I  will  allow 
it  when  you  and  1  settle  the  private  matter  between 
us.  This,  with  what  I  have  already  paid,  with  an 
outstanding  note  of  mine,  will  exceed  my  subscrip 
tion  of  $500.  This,  too,  is  exclusive  of  my  ordi 
nary  expenses  during  the  campaign,  all  of  which, 
being  added  to  my  loss  of  time  and  business,  bears 
prettily  heavily  upon  one  no  better  off  than  I  am. 
But  as  I  had  the  post  of  honor,  it  is  not  for  me  to 
be  over-nice."  At  the  time  this  letter  was  written 
his  property  consisted  of  the  house  and  lot  on 

157 


158  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

which  he  lived,  a  few  law  books  and  some  household 
furniture.  He  owned  a  small  tract  of  land  in  Iowa 
which  yielded  him  nothing,  and  the  annual  income 
from  his  law  practice  did  not  exceed  $3,000 ;  yet 
the  party's  committee  in  Chicago  were  dunning 
their  late  standard-bearer,  who,  besides  the  chagrin 
of  his  defeat,  his  own  expenses,  and  the  sacrifice  of 
his  time,  was  asked  to  aid  in  meeting  the  general 
expenses  of  the  campaign.  At  this  day  one  is  a 
little  surprised  that  some  of  the  generous  and 
wealthy  members  of  the  party  in  Chicago  or  else 
where  did  not  come  forward  and  volunteer  their 
aid.  But  they  did  not,  and  whether  Lincoln  felt 
in  his  heart  the  injustice  of  this  treatment  or  not, 
he  went  straight  ahead  in  his  own  path  and  said 
nothing  about  it. 

Political  business  being  off  his  hands,  he  now  con 
ceived  the  idea  of  entering  the  lecture  field.  He 
began  preparations  in  the  usual  way  by  noting 
down  ideas  on  stray  pieces  of  paper,  which  found  a 
lodgment  inside  his  hat,  and  finally  brought  forth 
in  connected  form  a  lecture  on  "  Inventions."  He 
recounted  the  wonderful  improvements  in  ma 
chinery,  the  arts,  and  sciences.  Now  and  then  he 
indulged  in  a  humorous  paragraph,  and  witticisms 
were  freely  sprinkled  throughout  the  lecture.  Dur 
ing  the  winter  he  delivered  it  at  several  towns  in 
the  central  part  of  the  State,  but  it  was  so  common 
place,  and  met  with  such  indifferent  success,  that  he 
soon  dropped  it  altogether.*  The  effort  met  with 

*  "  As  we  were  going  to  Danville  court  I  read  to  Lincoln  a  lecture 
bv  Bancroft  on  the  wonderful  progress  of  man,  delivered  in  the  prf 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  159 

the  disapproval  of  his  friends,  and  he  himself  was 
filled  with  disgust.  If  his  address  in  1852,  over  the 
death  of  Clay,  proved  that  he  was  no  eulogist,  then 
this  last  effort  demonstrated  that  he  was  no  lect 
urer.  Invitations  to  deliver  the  lecture — prompted 
no  doubt  by  the  advertisement  given  him  in  the 
contest  with  Douglas — came  in  very  freely ;  but 
beyond  the  three  attempts  named,  he  declined 
them  all.  "  Press  of  business  in  the  courts " 
afforded  him  a  convenient  excuse,  and  he  retired 
from  the  field.* 

During  the  fall  of  1859  invitations  to  take  part 
in  the  canvass  came  from  over  half-a-dozen  States 
where  elections  were  to  be  held,  Douglas,  fresh 
from  the  Senate,  had  gone  to  Ohio,  and  thither  in 
September  Lincoln,  in  response  to  the  demands  of 
party  friends  everywhere,  followed. f  He  delivered 

ceding  November.  Sometime  later  he  told  us — Swett  and  me — that 
he  had  been  thinking  much  on  the  subject  and  believed  he  would 
write  a  lecture  on  '  Man  and  His  Progress.'  Afterwards  I  read  in 
a  paper  that  he  had  come  to  either  Bloomington  or  Clinton  to  lect 
ure  and  no  one  turned  out.  The  paper  added,  '  That  doesn't  look 
much  like  his  being  President.'  I  once  joked  him  about  it ;  he  said 
good-naturedly,  '  Don't ;  that  plagues  me.' " — Henry  C.  Whitney, 
letter,  Aug.  27,  1867,  MS. 

*  "  SPRINGFIELD,  March  28,  1859. 
"  W.  M.  MORRIS,  Esq., 

"  DEAR  SIR  : — Your  kind  note  inviting  me  to  deliver  a  lecture  at 
Galesburg  is  received.  I  regret  to  say  I  cannot  do  so  now ;  I  must 
stick  to  the  courts  awhile.  I  read  a  sort  of  lecture  to  three  different 
audiences  during  the  last  month  and  this ;  but  I  did  so  under  circum 
stances  which  made  it  a  waste  of  no  time  whatever. 

"  Yours  very  truly, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

t "  He  returned  to  the  city  two  years  after  with  a  fame  as  wide  as 
the  continent,  with  the  laurels  of  the  Douglas  contest  on  his  brow, 
and  the  Presidency  in  his  grasp.  He  returned,  greeted  with  the 


l6o  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

telling  and  impressive  speeches  at  Cincinnati  and 
Columbus,*  following  Douglas  at  both  places.  He 
made  such  a  favorable  impression  among  his  Ohio 
friends  that,  after  a  glorious  Republican  victory,  the 
State  committee  asked  the  privilege  of  publishing 
his  speeches,  along  with  those  of  Douglas,  to  be 
used  and  distributed  as  a  campaign  document. 
This  request  he  especially  appreciated,  because  after 
some  effort  he  had  failed  to  induce  any  publisher  in 

thunder  of  cannon,  the  strains  of  martial  music,  and  the  joyous 
plaudits  of  thousands  of  citizens  thronging  the  streets.  He 
addressed  a  vast  concourse  on  Fifth  Street  Market ;  was  entertained 
in  princely  style  at  the  Burnet  House,  and  there  received  with  cour 
tesy  the  foremost  citizens  come  to  greet  this  rising  star.  With  high 
hope  and  happy  heart  he  left  Cincinnati  after  a  three  days'  sojourn. 
But  a  perverse  fortune  attended  him  and  Cincinnati  in  their  inter 
course.  Nine  months  after  Mr.  Lincoln  left  us,  after  he  had  been 
nominated  for  the  Presidency,  when  he  was  tranquilly  waiting  in  his 
cottage  home  at  Springfield  the  verdict  of  the  people,  his  last  visit  to 
Cincinnati  and  the  good  things  he  had  had  at  the  Burnet  House 
were  rudely  brought  to  his  memory  by  a  bill  presented  to  him  from 
its  proprietors.  Before  leaving  the  hotel  he  had  applied  to  the  clerk 
for  his  bill ;  was  told  that  it  was  paid,  or  words  to  that  effect.  This 
the  committee  had  directed,  but  afterwards  neglected  its  payment. 
The  proprietors  shrewdly  surmised  that  a  letter  to  the  nominee  for 
the  Presidency  would  bring  the  money.  The  only  significance  in 
this  incident  is  in  the  letter  it  brought  from  Mr.  Lincoln,  revealing 
his  indignation  at  the  seeming  imputation  against  his  honor,  and  his 
greater  indignation  at  one  item  of  the  bill.  '  As  to  wines,  liquors,  and 
cigars,  we  had  none,  absolutely  none.  These  last  may  have  been  in 
Room  15  by  order  of  committee,  but  I  do  not  recollect  them  at  all.' " 
— W.  M.  Dickson,  "  Harper's  Magazine,"  June,  1884. 

*  Douglas  had  written  a  long  and  carefully  prepared  article  on 
"  Popular  Sovereignty  in  the  Territories,"  which  appeared  for  the 
first  time  in  the  September  (1859)  number  of  "Harper's  Magazine." 
It  went  back  some  distance  into  the  history  of  the  government, 
recounting  the  proceedings  of  the  earliest  Congresses,  and  sought  to 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  !6i 

Springfield  to  undertake  the  enterprise,*  thus  prov 
ing  anew  that "  a  prophet  is  not  without  honor,  save 
in  his  own  country."  In  December  he  visited  Kan 
sas,  speaking  at  Atchison,  Troy,  Leavenworth,  and 
other  towns  near  the  border.  His  speeches  there 
served  to  extend  his  reputation  still  further  west 
ward.  Though  his  arguments  were  repetitions  of 
the  doctrine  laid  down  in  the  contest  with  Douglas, 
yet  they  were  new  to  the  majority  of  his  Kansas  f 

mark  out  more  clearly  than  had  heretofore  been  done  "  the  dividing 
line  between  Federal  and  Local  authority."  In  a  speech  at  Colum 
bus,  O,  Lincoln  answered  the  "copy- right  essay"  categorically.  After 
alluding  to  the  difference  of  position  between  himself  and  Judge 
Douglas  on  the  doctrine  of  Popular  Sovereignty,  he  said :  "  Judge 
Douglas  has  had  a  good  deal  of  trouble  with  Popular  Sovereignty. 
His  explanations,  explanatory  of  explanations  explained,  are  inter~ 
minable.  The  most  lengthy  and,  as  I  suppose,  the  most  maturely 
considered  of  his  long  series  of  explanations  is  his  great  essay  in 
"  Harper's  Magazine." 

*A  gentleman  is  still  living,  who  at  the  time  of  the  debate 
between  Lincoln  and  Douglas,  was  a  book  publisher  in  Springfield. 
Lincoln  had  collected  newspaper  slips  of  all  the  speeches  made  dur 
ing  the  debate,  and  proposed  to  him  their  publication  in  book  form  ; 
but  the  man  declined,  fearing  there  would  be  no  demand  for  such  a 
book.  Subsequently,  when  the  speeches  were  gotten  out  in  book 
form  in  Ohio,  Mr.  Lincoln  procured  a  copy  and  gave  it  to  his  Spring 
field  friend,  writing  on  the  fly-leaf,  "Compliments  of  A.  Lincoln." 

t  How  Mr.  Lincoln  stood  on  the  questions  of  the  hour,  after  his 
defeat  by  Douglas,  is  clearly  shown  in  a  letter  written  on  the  I4th  of 
May,  1859,  to  a  friend  in  Kansas,  who  had  forwarded  him  an  invita 
tion  to  attend  a  Republican  convention  there.  "  You  will  probably 
adopt  resolutions,"  he  writes,  "  in  the  nature  of  a  platform.  I  think 
the  only  danger  will  be  the  temptation  to  lower  the  Republican 
standard  in  order  to  gather  recruits.  In  my  judgment  such  a  step 
woald  be  a  serious  mistake,  and  open  a  gap  through  which  more 
would  pass  out  than  pass  in.  And  this  would  be  the  same  whether 
the  letting  down  should  be  in  deference  to  Douglasism  or  to  the 


1 62  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

hearers  and  were  enthusiastically  approved.  By 
the  close  of  the  year  he  was  back  again  in  the  dingy 
law  office  in  Springfield. 

The  opening  of  the  year  1860  found  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  name  freely  mentioned  in  connection  with 
the  Republican  nomination  for  the  Presidency.  To 
be  classed  with  Seward,  Chase,  McLean,  and  other 
celebrities  was  enough  to  stimulate  any  Illinois 
lawyer's  pride ;  but  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  case,  if  it  had 
any  such  effect,  he  was  most  artful  in  concealing  it. 
Now  and  then  some  ardent  friend,  an  editor,  for 
example,  would  run  his  name  up  to  the  mast-head, 
but  in  all  cases  he  discouraged  the  attempt.  "  In 
regard  to  the  matter  you  spoke  of,"  he  answered 
one  man  who  proposed  his  name,  "  I  beg  that  you 
will  not  give  it  a  further  mention.  Seriously,  I  do 
not  think  I  am  fit  for  the  Presidency."  * 

The  first  effort  in  his  behalf  as  a  Presidential  aspi- 

Southern  opposition  element;  either  would  surrender  the  object  of  the 
Republican  organization — the  preventing  of  the  spread  and  national 
ization  of  slavery.  This  object  surrendered,  the  organization  would 
go  to  pieces.  I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  no  Southern  man  must  be 
placed  upon  our  national  ticket  for  1860.  There  are  many  men  in 
the  slave  states  for  any  one  of  whom  I  could  cheerfully  vote,  to  be 
either  President  or  Vice-president,  provided  he  would  enable  me  to 
do  so  with  safety  to  the  Republican  cause,  without  lowering  the 
Republican  standard.  This  is  the  indispensable  condition  of  a 
union  with  us ;  it  is  idle  to  talk  of  any  other.  Any  other  would  be 
as  fruitless  to  the  South  as  distasteful  to  the  North,  the  whole  end 
ing  in  common  defeat.  Let  a  union  be  attempted  on  the  basis  of 
ignoring  the  slavery  question,  and  magnifying  other  questions  which 
the  people  are  just  now  caring  about,  and  it  will  result  in  gaining  no 
single  electoral  vote  in  the  South,  and  losing  every  one  in  the 
North."— MS.  letter  to  M.  W.  Delahay. 
*  Letter,  March  5,  1859,  to  Thomas  J.  Pickett. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  163 

rant  was  the  action  taken  by  his  friends  at  a  meet 
ing  held  in  the  State  House  early  in  1860,  in  the 
rooms  of  O.  M.  Hatch,  then  Secretary  of  State. 
Besides  Hatch  there  were  present  Norman  B.  Judd, 
chairman  of  the  Republican  State  Committee, 
Ebenezer  Peck,  Jackson  Grimshaw,  and  others  of 
equal  prominence  in  the  party.  "  We  all  expressed 
a  personal  preference  for  Mr.  Lincoln,"  relates  one 
who  was  a  participant  in  the  meeting,*  "as  the 
Illinois  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  and  asked  him 
if  his  name  might  be  used  at  once  in  connection 
with  the  nomination  and  election.  With  his  char 
acteristic  modesty  he  doubted  whether  he  could 
get  the  nomination  even  if  he  wished  it,  and  asked 
until  the  next  morning  to  answer  us  whether  his 
name  might  be  announced.  Late  the  next  day  he 
authorized  us,  if  we  thought  proper  to  do  so,  to 
place  him  in  the  field."  To  the  question  from  Mr. 
Grimshaw  whether,  if  the  nomination  for  President 
could  not  be  obtained,  he  would  accept  the  post  of 
Vice-president,  he  answered  that  he  would  not; 
that  his  name  having  been  used  for  the  office  of 
President,  he  would  not  permit  it  to  be  used  for 
any  other  office,  however  honorable  it  might  be. 
This  meeting  was  preliminary  to  the  Decatur  con 
vention,  and  was  also  the  first  concerted  action  in 
his  behalf  on  the  part  of  his  friends. 

In  the  preceding  October  he  came  rushing  into 
the  office  one  morning,  with  the  letter  from  New 
York  City,  inviting  him  to  deliver  a  lecture  there,  and 

*  Jackson  Grimshaw.     Letter,  Quincy,  111.,  April  28,  1866,  MS. 


164  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

asked  my  advice  and  that  of  other  friends  as  to 
the  subject  and  character  of  his  address.  We  all 
recommended  a  speech  on  the  political  situation. 
Remembering  his  poor  success  as  a  lecturer  himself, 
he  adopted  our  suggestions.  He  accepted  the  invi 
tation  of  the  New  York  committee,  at  the  same 
time  notifying  them  that  his  speech  would  deal 
entirely  with  political  questions,  and  fixing  a  day 
late  in  February  as  the  most  convenient  time. 
Meanwhile  he  spent  the  intervening  time  in  careful 
preparation.  He  searched  through  the  dusty  vol 
umes  of  congressional  proceedings  in  the  State 
library,  and  dug  deeply  into  political  history.  He 
was  painstaking  and  thorough  in  the  study  of  his 
subject,  but  when  at  last  he  left  for  New  York  we 
had  many  misgivings — and  he  not  a  few  himself — 
of  his  success  in  the  great  metropolis.  What  effect 
the  unpretentious  Western  lawyer  would  have  on 
the  wealthy  and  fashionable  society  of  the  great 
city  could  only  be  conjectured.  A  description  of 
the  meeting  at  Cooper  Institute,  a  list  of  the  names 
of  the  prominent  men  and  women  present,  or  an 
account  of  Lincoln  in  the  delivery  of  the  address 
would  be  needless  repetitions  of  well-known  his 
tory.*  It  only  remains  to  say  that  his  speech  was 

*  On  his  return  home  Lincoln  told  me  that  for  once  in  his  life  he 
was  greatly  abashed  over  his  personal  appearance.  The  new  suit  of 
clothes  which  he  donned  on  his  arrival  in  New  York  were  ill-fitting 
garments,  and  showed  the  creases  made  while  packed  in  the  valise ; 
and  for  a  long  time  after  he  began  his  speech  and  before  he  became 
"  warmed  up  "  he  imagined  that  the  audience  noticed  the  contrast 
between  his  Western  clothes  and  the  neat-fitting  suits  of  Mr.  Bryant 
and  others  who  sat  on  the  platform.  The  collar  of  his  coat  on  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  165 

devoid  of  all  rhetorical  imagery,  with  a  marked  sup 
pression  of  the  pyrotechnics  of  stump  oratory.  It 
was  constructed  with  a  view  to  accuracy  of  state 
ment,  simplicity  of  language,  and  unity  of  thought. 
In  some  respects  like  a  lawyer's  brief,  it  was  logical, 
temperate  in  tone,  powerful — irresistibly  driving 
conviction  home  to  men's  reasons  and  their  souls. 
No  former  effort  in  the  line  of  speech-making  had 
cost  Lincoln  so  much  time  and  thought  as  this  one. 
It  is  said  by  one  of  his  biographers,  that  those 
afterwards  engaged  in  getting  out  the  speech  as  a 
campaign  document  were  three  weeks  in  verifying 
the  statements  and  finding  the  historical  records 
referred  to  and  consulted  by  him.  This  is  probably 
a  little  over-stated  as  to  time,  but  unquestionably 
the  work  of  verification  and  reference,  was  in  any 
event  a  very  labored  and  extended  one.*  The  day 
following  the  Cooper  Institute  meeting,  the  leading 
New  York  dailies  published  the  speech  in  full,  and 
made  favorable  editorial  mention  of  it  and  of  the 
speaker  as  well.  It  was  plain  now  that  Lincoln  had 
captured  the  metropolis.  From  New  York  he  trav 
elled  to  New  England  to  visit  his  son  Robert,  who 

right  side  had  an  unpleasant  way  of  flying  up  whenever  he  raised  his 
arm  to  gesticulate.  He  imagined  the  audience  noticed  that  also. 
After  the  meeting  closed,  the  newspaper  reporters  called  for  slips  of 
his  speech.  This  amused  him,  because  he  had  no  idea  what  slips 
were,  and  besides,  didn't  suppose  the  newspapers  cared  to  print  his 
speech  verbatim. 

*  Mr.  Lincoln  obtained  most  of  the  facts  of  his  Cooper  Institute 
speech  from  Eliott's  "  Debates  on  the  Federal  Constitution."  There 
were  six  volumes,  which  he  gave  to  me  when  he  went  to  Washington 
in  1861. 


1 66  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

was  attending  college.  In  answer  to  the  many  calls 
and  invitations  which  showered  on  him,  he  spoke  at 
various  places  in  Connecticut,  Rhode  Island,  and 
New  Hampshire.  In  all  these  places  he  not  only 
left  deep  impressions  of  his  ability,  but  he  con 
vinced  New  England  of  his  intense  earnestness  in 
the  great  cause.  The  newspapers  treated  him  with 
no  little  consideration.  One  paper*  characterized 
his  speech  as  one  of  "great  fairness,"  delivered  with 
"great  apparent  candor  and  wonderful  interest. 
For  the  first  half  hour  his  opponents  would  agree 
with  every  word  he  uttered  ;  and  from  that  point 
he  would  lead  them  off  little  by  little  until  it  seemed 
as  if  he  had  got  them  all  into  his  fold.  He  is  far 
from  prepossessing  in  personal  appearance,  and  his 
voice  is  disagreeable ;  and  yet  he  wins  your  atten 
tion  from  the  start.  He  indulges  in  no  flowers  of 

rhetoric,  no  eloquent  passages He  displays 

more  shrewdness,  more  knowledge  of  the  masses  of 
mankind  than  any  public  speaker  we  have  heard 
since  Long  Jim  Wilson  left  for  California." 

Lincoln's  return  to  Springfield  after  his  dazzling 
success  in  the  East  was  the  signal  for  earnest  con 
gratulations  on  the  part  of  his  friends.  Seward  was 
the  great  man  of  the  day,  but  Lincoln  had  demon 
strated  to  the  satisfaction  of  his  friends  that  he  was 
tall  enough  and  strong  enough  to  measure  swords 
with  the  Auburn  statesman.  His  triumph  in  New 
York  and  New  England  had  shown  that  the  idea  of 
a  house  divided  against  itself  induced  as  strong 

*  Manchester  Mirror. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  167 

cooperation  and  hearty  support  in  prevention  of  a 
great  wrong  in  the  East  as  the  famous  "  irrepres 
sible  conflict"  attracted  warriors  to  Seward's  stand 
ard  in  the  Mississippi  valley.  It  was  apparent  now 
to  Lincoln  that  the  Presidential  nomination  was 
within  his  reach.  He  began  gradually  to  lose  his 
interest  in  the  law  and  to  trim  his  political  sails  at 
the  same  time.  His  recent  success  had  stimulated 
his  self-confidence  to  unwonted  proportions.  He 
wrote  to  influential  party  workers  everywhere.  I 
know  the  idea  prevails  that  Lincoln  sat  still  in 
his  chair  in  Springfield,  and  that  one  of  those 
unlooked-for  tides  in  human  affairs  came  along  and 
cast  the  nomination  into  his  lap  ;  but  any  man  who 
has  had  experience  in  such  things  knows  that  great 
political  prizes  are  not  obtained  in  that  way.  The 
truth  is,  Lincoln  was  as  vigilant  as  he  was  ambitious, 
and  there  is  no  denying  the  fact  that  he  understood 
the  situation  perfectly  from  the  start.  In  the  man 
agement  of  his  own  interests  he  was  obliged  to  rely 
almost  entirely  on  his  own  resources.  He  had  no 
money  with  which  to  maintain  a  political  bureau, 
and  he  lacked  any  kind  of  personal  organization 
whatever.  Seward  had  all  these  things,  and,  behind 
them  all,  a  brilliant  record  in  the  United  States 
Senate  with  which  to  dazzle  his  followers.  But 
with  all  his  prestige  and  experience  the  latter  was 
no  more  adroit  and  no  more  untiring  in  pursuit  of 
his  ambition  than  the  man  who  had  just  delivered 
the  Cooper  Institute  speech.  A  letter  written  by 
Lincoln  about  this  time  to  a  friend  in  Kansas  serves 

to  illustrate  his  methods,  and  measures  the  extent 
35 


1 68  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

of  his  ambition.  The  letter  is  dated  March  10,  and 
is  now  in  my  possession.  For  obvious  reasons  I 
withhold  the  friend's  name  :  "  As  to  your  kind 
wishes  for  myself,"  writes  Lincoln,  "  allow  me  to  say 
I  cannot  enter  the  ring  on  the  money  basis — first, 
because  in  the  main  it  is  wrong ;  and  secondly,  I 
have  not  and  cannot  get  the  money.  I  say  in  the 
main  the  use  of  money  is  wrong ;  but  for  certain 
objects  in  a  political  contest  the  use  of  some  is  both 
right  and  indispensable.  With  me,  as  with  yourself, 
this  long  struggle  has  been  one  of  great  pecuniary 
loss.  I  now  distinctly  say  this:  If  you  shall  be 
appointed  a  delegate  to  Chicago  I  will  furnish  one 
hundred  dollars  to  bear  the  expenses  of  the  trip." 
There  is  enough  in  this  letter  to  show  that  Lincoln 
was  not  only  determined  in  his  political  ambition, 
but  intensely  practical  as  well.  His  eye  was  con 
stantly  fastened  on  Seward,  who  had  already  freely 
exercised  the  rights  of  leadership  in  the  party.  All 
other  competitors  he  dropped  out  of  the  problem. 
In  the  middle  of  April  he  again  writes  his  Kansas 
friend  :  "  Reaching  home  last  night  I  found  yours 
of  the  7th.  You  know  I  was  recently  in  New  Eng 
land.  Some  of  the  acquaintances  while  there  write 
me  since  the  election  that  the  close  vote  in  Connec 
ticut  and  the  quasi-defeat  in  Rhode  Island  are  a 
drawback  upon  the  prospects  of  Governor  Seward  ; 
and  Trumbull  writes  Dubois  to  the  same  effect. 
Do  not  mention  this  as  coming  from  me.  Both 
these  States  are  safe  enough  in  the  fall."  But, 
while  Seward  may  have  lost  ground  near  his  home, 
he  was  acquiring  strength  in  the  West.  He  had 


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EXTRACT  FROM  LETTER  TO  KANSAS  DELEGATE,  MARCH  10,  1860. 

(Slightly  reduced.) 
Original  in  possession  ofj.  W.  Weik. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  169 

invaded  the  very  territory  Lincoln  was  intending  to 
retain  by  virtue  of  his  course  in  the  contest  with 
Douglas.  Lincoln's  friend  in  Kansas,  instead  of 
securing  that  delegation  for  him,  had  suffered  the 
Seward  men  to  outgeneral  him,  and  the  prospects 
were  by  no  means  flattering.  "  I  see  by  the  dis 
patches,"  writes  Lincoln,  in  a  burst  of  surprise, 
"  that,  since  you  wrote,  Kansas  has  appointed  dele 
gates  and  instructed  for  Seward.  Don  't  stir  them 
up  to  anger,  but  come  along  to  the  convention  and 
I  will  do  as  I  said  about  expenses.  "  Whether  the 
friend  ever  accepted  Lincoln's  generous  offer  I  do 
not  know,*  but  it  may  not  be  without  interest  to 
state  that  within  ten  days  after  the  latter's  inaugu 
ration  he  appointed  him  to  a  Federal  office  with 
comfortable  salary  attached,  and  even  asked  for  his 
preferences  as  to  other  contemplated  appointments 
in  his  own  State.f  In  the  rapid,  stirring  scenes  that 

*This  case  illustrates  quite  forcibly  Lincoln's  weakness  in  deal 
ing  with  individuals.  This  man  I  know  had  written  Lincoln,  promis 
ing  to  bring  the  Kansas  delegation  to  Chicago  for  him  if  he  would 
anly  pay  his  expenses.  Lincoln  was  weak  enough  to  make  the 
promise,  and  yet  such  was  his  faith  in  the  man  that  he  appointed  him 
to  an  important  judicial  position  and  gave  him  great  prominence  in 
other  ways.  What  President  or  candidate  for  President  would  dare 
do  such  a  thing  now  ? 

t  The  following  is  in  my  possession : 

"EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  March  13, 1861. 

" ,  Esq. 

"Mv  DEAR  SIR: 

"You  will  start  for  Kansas  before  I  see  you  again ;  and  when  I 
saw  you  a  moment  this  morning  I  forgot  to  ask  you  about  some  of 
the  Kansas  appointments,  which  I  intended  to  do.  If  you  care  much 
about  them  you  can  write,  as  I  think  I  shall  not  make  the  appoint* 
ments  just  yet.  «  Yours  in  haste, 

"  A.  LINCOLN." 


1 7O  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

crowd  upon  each  other  from  this  time  forward  the 
individuality  of  Lincoln  is  easily  lost  sight  of. 
He  was  so  thoroughly  interwoven  in  the  issues 
before  the  people  of  Illinois  that  he  had  become  a 
part  of  them.  Among  his  colleagues  at  the  bar  he 
was  no  longer  looked  upon  as  the  Circuit-Court  law 
yer  of  earlier  days.  To  them  it  seemed  as  if  the 
nation  were  about  to  lay  its  claim  upon  him.  His 
tall  form  enlarged,  until,  to  use  a  figurative  expres 
sion,  he  could  no  longer  pass  through  the  door  of 
our  dingy  office.  Reference  has  already  been  made 
to  the  envy  of  his  rivals  at  the  bar,  and  the  jealousy 
of  his  political  contemporaries.  Very  few  indeed 
were  free  from  the  degrading  passion  ;  but  it  made 
no  difference  in  Lincoln's  treatment  of  them.  He 
was  as  generous  and  deferred  to  them  as  much  as 
ever.  The  first  public  movement  by  the  Illinois 
people  in  his  interest  was  the  action  of  the  State 
convention,  which  met  at  Decatur  on  the  Qth  and 
loth  of  May.  It  was  at  this  convention  that  Lin 
coln's  friend  and  cousin,  John  Hanks,  brought  in  the 
two  historic  rails  which  both  had  made  in  the  Sanga- 
mon  bottom  in  1830,  and  which  served  the  double  pur 
pose  of  electrifying  the  Illinois  people  and  kindling 
the  fire  of  enthusiasm  that  was  destined  to  sweep 
over  the  nation.  In  the  words  of  an  ardent  Lincoln 
delegate,  "  These  rails  were  to  represent  the  issue 
in  the  coming  contest  between  labor  free  and  labor 
slave  ;  between  democracy  and  aristocracy.  Little  did 
I  think,"  continues  our  jubilant  and  effusive  friend, 
"  of  the  mighty  consequences  of  this  little  incident ; 
little  did  Tthink  that  the  tall,  and  angular,  and  bony 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  ijl 

rail-splitter  who  stood  in  girlish  diffidence  bow 
ing  with  awkward  grace  would  fill  the  chair  once 
filled  by  Washington,  and  that  his  name  would  echo 
in  chants  of  praise  along  the  corridor  of  all  coming 
time.  "  A  week  later  the  hosts  were  gathered  for 
the  great  convention  in  Chicago.  David  Davis  had 
rented  rooms  in  the  Tremont  House  and  opened  up 
"  Lincoln's  headquarters.  "  I  was  not  a  delegate, 
but  belonged  to  the  contingent  which  had  Lincoln's 
interests  in  charge.  Judge  Logan  was  the  Spring 
field  delegate,  and  to  him  Lincoln  had  given  a  letter 
authorizing  the  withdrawal  of  his  name  whenever 
his  friends  deemed  such  action  necessary  or  proper. 
Davis  was  the  active  man,  and  had  the  business  man 
agement  in  charge.  If  any  negotiations  were  made, 
he  made  them.  The  convention  was  held  in  a  mon 
ster  building  called  the  Wigwam.  No  one  who  has 
ever  attempted  a  description  of  it  has  overdrawn  its 
enthusiasm  and  exciting  scenes.  Amid  all  the  din 
and  confusion,  the  curbstone  contentions,  the  pro 
miscuous  wrangling  of  delegates,  the  deafening  roar 
of  the  assembled  hosts,  the  contest  narrowed  down 
to  a  neck-and-neck  race  between  the  brilliant  states 
man  of  Auburn  and  the  less  pretentious,  but  manly 
rail-splitter  from  the  Sangamon  bottoms.  With  the 
proceedings  of  the  convention  the  world  is  already 
well  familiar.  On  the  first  ballot  Seward  led,  but 
was  closely  followed  by  Lincoln ;  on  the  second  Lin 
coln  gained  amazingly ;  on  the  third  the  race  was  an 
even  one  until  the  dramatic  change  by  Carter,  of 
Ohio,  when  Lincoln,  swinging  loose,  swept  grandly  to 
the  front.  The  cannon  planted  on  the  roof  of  the 


1/2  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

Wigwam  belched  forth  a  boom  across  the  Illinois 
prairies.  The  sound  was  taken  up  and  reverberated 
from  Maine  to  California.  With  the  nomination 
of  Hannibal  Hamlin,  of  Maine,  the  convention 
adjourned.  The  delegates — victorious  and  van- 
quished  alike — turned  their  steps  homeward,  and 
the  great  campaign  of  1860  had  begun.  The  day 
before  the  nomination  the  editor  of  the  Springfield 
Journal  arrived  in  Chicago  with  a  copy  of  the  Mis 
souri  Democrat,  in  which  Lincoln  had  marked  three 
passages  referring  to  Seward's  position  on  the  slav 
ery  question.  On  the  margin  of  the  paper  he  had 
written  in  pencil,  "  I  agree  with  Seward  in  his  *  Irre 
pressible  Conflict/  but  I  do  not  endorse  his  '  Higher 
Law  '  doctrine."  Then  he  added  in  words  under 
scored,  "  Make  no  contracts  that  will  bind  me." 
This  paper  was  brought  into  the  room  where  Davis, 
Judd,  Logan,  and  I  were  gathered,  and  was  read  to 
us.  But  Lincoln  was  down  in  Springfield,  some  dis 
tance  away  from  Chicago,  and  could  therefore  not 
appreciate  the  gravity  of  the  situation ;  at  least  so 
Davis  argued,  and,  viewing  it  in  that  light,  the  latter 
went  ahead  with  his  negotiations.  What  the  conse 
quences  of  these  deals  were  will  appear  later  on. 
The  news  of  his  nomination  found  Lincoln  at 
Springfield  in  the  office  of  the  Journal.  Naturally 
enough  he  was  nervous,  restless,  and  laboring  under 
more  or  less  suppressed  excitement.  He  had  been 
tossing  ball — a  pastime  frequently  indulged  in  by 
the  lawyers  of  that  day,  and  had  played  a  few  games 
of  billiards  to  keep  down,  as  another  has  expressed 
it,  "the  unnatural  excitement  that  threatened  to 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  173 

possess  him."  When  the  telegram  containing  the 
result  of  the  last  ballot  came  in,  although  appar 
ently  calm  and  undisturbed,  a  close  observer  could 
have  detected  in  the  compressed  lip  and  serious 
countenance  evidences  of  deep  and  unusual  emo 
tion.  As  the  balloting  progressed  he  had  gone  to 
the  office  of  the  Journal,  and  was  sitting  in  a  large 
arm-chair  there  when  the  news  of  his  nomination 
came.  What  a  line  of  scenes,  stretching  from  the 
barren  glade  in  Kentucky  to  the  jubilant  and  en- 
thusiastic  throng  in  the  Wigwam  at  Chicago,  must 
have  broken  in  upon  his  vision  as  he  hastened  from 
the  newspaper  office  to  "  tell  a  little  woman  down 
the  street  the  news  ! "  In  the  evening  his  friends 
and  neighbors  called  to  congratulate  him.  He 
thanked  them  feelingly  and  shook  them  each  by  the 
hand.  A  day  later  the  committee  from  the  conven 
tion,  with  George  Ashmun,  of  Massachusetts,  at  its 
head,  called,  and  delivered  formal  notice  of  his  nom 
ination.  This  meeting  took  place  at  his  house. 
His  response  was  couched  in  polite  and  dignified 
language,  and  many  of  the  committee,  who  now 
met  him  for  the  first  time,  departed  with  an  im 
proved  impression  of  the  new  standard-bearer.  A 
few  days  later  he  wrote  his  official  letter  of  accept 
ance,  in  which  he  warmly  endorsed  the  resolutions  of 
the  convention.  His  actions  and  utterances  so  far 
had  begun  to  dissipate  the  erroneous  notion  prev 
alent  in  some  of  the  more  remote  Eastern  States, 
that  he  was  more  of  a  backwoods  boor  than  a  gen 
tleman  ;  but  with  the  arrival  of  the  campaign  in 
dead  earnest,  people  paid  less  attention  to  the  can- 


1 74  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

didates  and  more  to  the  great  issues  at  stake. 
Briefly  stated,  the  Republican  platform  was  a  dec 
laration  that  "  the  new  dogma,  that  the  Constitu 
tion  carries  slavery  into  all  the  Territories,  is  a  dan- 
gerous  political  heresy,  revolutionary  in  tendency 
and  subversive  of  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the 
country ;  that  the  normal  condition  of  all  the  Terri 
tories  is  that  of  freedom  ;  that  neither  Congress,  the 
territorial  legislature,  nor  any  individual  can  give  le 
gal  existence  to  slavery  in  any  territory ;  that  the 
opening  of  the  slave  trade  would  be  a  crime  against 
humanity."  Resolutions  favoring  a  homestead  law, 
river  and  harbor  improvements,  and  the  Pacific 
railroad  were  also  included  in  the  platform.  With 
these  the  Republicans,  as  a  lawyer  would  say,  went 
to  the  country.  The  campaign  which  followed  was 
one  with  few  parallels  in  American  history.  There 
was  not  only  the  customary  exultation  and  enthu 
siasm  over  candidates,  but  there  was  patient  listening 
and  hard  thinking  among  the  masses.  The  slavery 
question,  it  was  felt,  must  soon  be  decided.  Threats 
of  disunion  were  the  texts  of  many  a  campaign 
speech  in  the  South:  in  fact,  as  has  since  been 
shown,  a  deep  laid  conspiracy  to  overthrow  the 
Union  was  then  forming,  and  was  only  awaiting  the 
election  of  a  Republican  President  to  show  its  hid 
eous  head.  The  Democratic  party  was  struggling 
under  the  demoralizing  effects  of  a  split,  in  which 
even  the  Buchanan  administration  had  taken  sides. 
Douglas,  the  nominee  of  one  wing,  in  his  despera 
tion  had  entered  into  the  canvass  himself,  making 
speeches  with  all  the  power  and  eloquence  at  his 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN,  175 

command.  The  Republicans,  cheered  over  the 
prospect,  had  joined  hands  with  the  Abolitionists, 
and  both  were  marching  to  victory  under  the 
inspiration  of  Lincoln's  sentiment,  that  "  the  further 
spread  of  slavery  should  be  arrested,  and  it  should 
be  placed  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the 
belief  of  its  ultimate  extinction." 

As  the  canvass  advanced  and  waxed  warm  I  ten 
dered  my  services  and  made  a  number  of  speeches 
in  the  central  part  of  the  State.  I  remember,  in  the 
midst  of  a  speech  at  Petersburg,  and  just  as  I  was 
approaching  an  oratorical  climax,  a  man  out  of 
breath  came  rushing  up  to  me  and  thrust  a  message 
into  my  hand.  I  was  somewhat  frustrated  and 
greatly  alarmed,  fearing  it  might  contain  news  of 
some  accident  in  my  family  ;  but  great  was  my  re 
lief  when  I  read  it,  which  I  did  aloud.  It  was  a 
message  from  Lincoln,  telling  me  to  be  be  of  good 
cheer,  that  Ohio,  Pennsylvania,  and  Indiana  had 
gone  Republican.* 

These  were  then  October  States,  and  this  was  the 
first  gun  for  the  great  cause.  It  created  so  much 
demonstration,  such  a  burst  of  enthusiasm  and  con 
fusion,  that  the  crowd  forgot  they  had  any  speaker; 
they  ran  yelling  and  hurrahing  out  of  the  hall,  and  I 
never  succeeded  in  finishing  the  speech. 

*The  handwriting  of  the  note  was  a  little  tremulous,  showing  that 
Lincoln  was  excited  and  nervous  when  he  wrote  it.  Following  is  a 
copy  of  the  original  MS. : 

"  SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  October  10,  1860. 

"  DEAR  WILLIAM  :  I  cannot  give  you  details,  but  it  is  entirely 
certain  that  Pennsylvania  and  Indiana  have  gone  Republican  very 
largely.  Pennsylvania  25,000,  and  Indiana  5000  to  10,000.  Ohio 
of  course  is  safe.  "  Yours  as  ever, 

"  A.  LINCOLN." 


1 76  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

As  soon  as  officially  notified  of  his  nomination* 
Mr.  Lincoln  moved  his  headquarters  from  our  office 
to  a  room  in  the  State  House  building,  and  there, 
with  his  secretary,  John  G.  Nicolay,  he  spent  the 
busy  and  exciting  days  of  his  campaign.  Of  course 
he  attended  to  no  law  business,  but  still  he  loved  to 
come  to  our  office  of  evenings,  and  spend  an  hour 
with  a  few  choice  friends  in  a  friendly  privacy 
which  was  denied  him  at  his  public  quarters. 
These  were  among  the  last  meetings  we  had  with 
Lincoln  as  our  friend  and  fellow  at  the  bar ;  and 
they  are  also  the  most  delightful  recollections  any 
of  us  have  retained  of  him.f  At  last  the  turmoil 


*  Following  is  Lincoln's  letter  of  acceptance : 

"  SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  June  23,  1860. 

"  SIR  :  I  accept  the  nomination  tendered  me  by  the  convention  over 
which  you  presided,  of  which  I  am  formally  apprised  in  a  letter  of 
yourself  and  others,  acting  as  a  committee  of  the  convention  for  that 
purpose.  The  declaration  of  principles  which  accompanies  your 
letter  meets  my  approval,  and  it  shall  be  my  care  not  to  violate  it  or 
disregard  it  in  any  part.  Imploring  the  assistance  of  Divine  Provi 
dence,  and  with  due  regard  to  the  views  and  feelings  of  all  who  were 
represented  in  the  convention,  to  the  rights  of  all  the  states  and 
territories  and  people  of  the  nation,  to  the  inviolability  of  the  Consti 
tution,  and  the  perpetual  union,  prosperity,  and  harmony  of  all,  I 
am  most  happy  to  cooperate  for  the  practical  success  of  the  prin 
ciples  declared  by  the  convention. 

"  Your  obliged  friend  and  fellow-citizen, 

"  HON.  GEORGE  ASHMUN."  "  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN/' 

t  One  of  what  Lincoln  regarded  as  the  remarkable  features  of  his 
canvass  for  President  was  the  attitude  of  some  of  his  neighbors  in 
Springfield.  A  poll  of  the  voters  had  been  made  in  a  little  book  and 
given  to  him.  On  running  over  the  names  he  found  that  the  greater 
part  of  the  clergy  of  the  city — in  fact  all  but  three — were  against  him. 
This  depressed  him  somewhat,  and  he  called  in  Dr.  Newton  Bateman, 
who  as  Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction  occupied  the  room 
adjoining  his  own  in  the  State  House,  and  whom  he  habitually 
addressed  as  "  Mr.  Schoolmaster."  He  commented  bitterly  on  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  1 77 

and  excitement  and  fatigue  of  the  campaign  were 
over  :  the  enthusiastic  political  workers  threw  aside 
their  campaign  uniforms,  the  boys  blew  out  their 
torches,  and  the  voter  approached  the  polls  with 
his  ballot.  On  the  morning  of  election  day  I 
stepped  in  to  see  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  was  surprised  to 
learn  that  he  did  not  intend  to  cast  his  vote.  I 
knew  of  course  that  he  did  so  because  of  a  feeling 
that  the  candidate  for  a  Presidential  office  ought  not 
to  vote  for  his  own  electors ;  but  when  I  suggested 
the  plan  of  cutting  off  the  Presidential  electors  and 
voting  for  the  State  officers,  he  was  struck  with  the 
idea,  and  at  last  consented.  His  appearance  at  the 
polls,  accompanied  by  Ward  Lamon,  the  lamented 
young  Ellsworth,  and  myself,  was  the  occasion  of  no 
little  surprise  because  of  the  general  impression 
which  prevailed  that  he  did  not  intend  to  vote. 
The  crowd  around  the  polls  opened  a  gap  as  the 
distinguished  voter  approached,  and  some  even 
removed  their  hats  as  he  deposited  his  ticket  and 
announced  in  a  subdued  voice  his  name,  " Abraham 
Lincoln." 

The  election  was  held  on  the  6th  of  Novem 
ber.  The  result  showed  a  popular  vote  of  1,857,610 
for  Lincoln;  1,291,574  for  Douglas;  850,022  for 
Breckenridge ;  and  646,124  for  Bell.  In  the  elec- 


attitude  of  the  preachers  and  many  of  their  followers,  who,  pretend 
ing  to  be  believers  in  the  Bible  and  God-fearing  Christians,  yet 
by  their  votes  demonstrated  that  they  cared  not  whether  slavery 
was  voted  up  or  down.  "  God  cares  and  humanity  cares,"  he 
reflected,  "  and  if  they  do  not  they  surely  have  not  read  their  Bible 
aright." 


178  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

toral  college  Lincoln  received  180  votes,  Brecken- 
ridge  72,  Bell  39,  and  Douglas  12.*  Mr.  Lincoln 
having  now  been  elected,  there  remained,  before 
taking  up  the  reins  of  government,  the  details  of  his 
departure  from  Springfield,  and  the  selection  of  a 
cabinet. 

*  Lincoln  electors  were  chosen  in  seventeen  of  the  free  States,  as 
follows :  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  Con 
necticut,  Vermont,  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois, 
Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  Iowa,  California,  Oregon ;  and  in 
one  State, — New  Jersey, — owing  to  a  fusion  between  Democrats, 
Lincoln  secured  four  and  Douglas  three  of  the  electors.  Alabama, 
Arkansas,  Delaware,  Florida,  Georgia,  Louisiana,  Maryland,  Missis 
sippi,  North,  and  South  Carolina,  and  Texas  went  for  Breckenridgc ; 
Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  Virginia  for  Bell ;  while  Douglas  secured 
only  one  entire  State — Missouri. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

THE  election  over,  Mr.  Lincoln  scarcely  had  time 
enough  to  take  a  breath  until  another  campaign 
and  one  equally  trying,  so  far  as  a  test  of  his 
constitution  and  nerves  was  concerned,  as  the  one 
through  which  he  had  just  passed,  opened  up  before 
him.  I  refer  to  the  siege  of  the  cabinet-makers  and 
office-seekers.  It  proved  to  be  a  severe  and  pro 
tracted  strain  and  one  from  which  there  seemed  to 
be  no  relief,  as  the  President-elect  of  this  renowned 
democratic  Government  is  by  custom  and  prece 
dent  expected  to  meet  and  listen  to  everybody  who 
calls  to  see  him.  "  Individuals,  deputations,  and 
delegations,"  says  one  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  biographers, 
"  from  all  quarters  pressed  in  upon  him  in  a  man 
ner  that  might  have  killed  a  man  of  less  robust  con 
stitution.  The  hotels  of  Springfield  were  filled 
with  gentlemen  who  came  with  light  baggage  and 
heavy  schemes.  The  party  had  never  been  in 
office.  A  clean  sweep  of  the  '  ins '  was  expected, 
and  all  the  t  outs  '  were  patriotically  anxious  to  take 
the  vacant  places.  It  was  a  party  that  had  never 
fed;  and  it  was  voraciously  hungry.  Mr.  Lincoln 
and  Artemus  Ward  saw  a  great  deal  of  fun  in  it; 
and  in  all  human  probality  it  was  the  fun  alone 
that  enabled  Mr.  Lincoln  to  bear  it." 

179 


ISO  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

His  own  election  of  course  disposed  of  any  claims 
Illinois  might  have  had  to  any  further  representa 
tion  in  the  cabinet,  but  it  afforded  Mr.  Lincoln  no 
relief  from  the  argumentative  interviews  and  press 
ing  claims  of  the  endless  list  of  ambitious  statesmen 
in  the  thirty-two  other  states,  who  swarmed  into 
Springfield  from  every  point  of  the  compass.  He 
told  each  one  of  them  a  story,  and  even  if  he  failed 
to  put  their  names  on  his  slate  they  went  away  with 
out  knowing  that  fact,  and  never  forgot  the  visit.* 

*  A  newspaper  correspondent  who  had  been  sent  down  from 
Chicago  to  "  write  up  "  Mr.  Lincoln  soon  after  his  nomination,  was 
kind  enough  several  years  ago  to  furnish  me  with  an  account  of  his 
visit.  As  some  of  his  reminiscences  are  more  or  less  interesting,  I 
take  the  liberty  of  inserting  a  portion  of  his  letter.  "  A  what-not 
in  the  corner  of  the  room,"  he  relates,  "was  laden  with  various 
kinds  of  shells.  Taking  one  in  my  hand,  I  said,  '  This,  I  suppose,  is 
called  a  Trocus  by  the  geologist  or  naturalist.'  Mr.  Lincoln  paused 
a  moment  as  if  reflecting  and  then  replied,  'I  do  not  know,  for  I 
never  studied  either  geology  or  natural  history.'  I  then  took  to 
examining  the  few  pictures  that  hung  on  the  walls,  and  was  paying 
more  than  ordinary  attention  to  one  that  hung  above  the  sofa.  He 
was  immediately  at  my  left  and  pointing  to  it  said,  '  That  picture 
gives  a  very  fair  representation  of  my  homely  face.'  .  .  .  The  time 
for  my  departure  nearing,  I  made  the  usual  apologies  and  started  to 
go.  '  You  cannot  get  out  of  the  town  before  a  quarter  past  eleven,' 
remonstrated  Mr.  Lincoln,  '  and  you  may  as  well  stay  a  little  longer.' 
Under  pretence  of  some  unfinished  matters  down  town,  however,  I 
very  reluctantly  withdrew  from  the  mansion.  '  Well,'  said  Mr. 
Lincoln,  as  we  passed  into  the  hall,  '  suppose  you  come  over  to  the 
State  House  before  you  start  for  Chicago.'  After  a  moment's  delib 
eration  I  promised  to  do  so.  Mr.  Lincoln,  following  without  his 
hat,  and  continuing  the  conversation,  shook  hands  across  the  gate, 
saying,  '  Now,  come  over.'  I  wended  my  way  to  my  hotel,  and  after 
a  brief  period  was  in  his  office  at  the  State  House.  Resuming  con 
versation,  he  said,  '  If  the  man  comes  with  the  key  before  you  go,  I 
want  to  give  you  a  book.'  I  certainly  hoped  the  man  would  come 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  I  g  I 

He  had  a  way  of  pretending  to  assure  his  visitor 
that  in  the  choice  of  his  advisers  he  was  "  free  to 
act  as  his  judgment  dictated,"  although  David 
Davis,  acting  as  his  manager  at  the  Chicago  conven 
tion,  had  negotiated  with  the  Indiana  and  Pennsyl 
vania  delegations,  and  assigned  places  in  the  cabi 
net  to  Simon  Cameron  and  Caleb  Smith,  besides 
making  other  "arrangements"  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  expected  to  ratify.  Of  this  he  was  undoubt 
edly  aware,  although  in  answer  to  a  letter  from 
Joshua  R.  Giddings,  of  Ohio,  congratulating  him 


with  the  key.  Some  conversation  had  taken  place  at  the  house  on 
which  his  book  treated, — but  I  had  forgotten  this, — and  soon  Mr. 
Lincoln  absented  himself  for  perhaps  two  minutes  and  returned  with 
a  copy  of  the  debates  between  himself  and  Judge  Douglas.  He 
placed  the  book  on  his  knee,  as  he  sat  back  on  two  legs  of  his  chair, 
and  wrote  on  the  fly-leaf,  '  J.  S.  Bliss,  from  A.  Lincoln.'  Besides  this 
he  marked  a  complete  paragraph  near  the  middle  of  the  book. 
While  sitting  in  the  position  described  little  Willie,  his  son,  came  in 
and  begged  his  father  for  twenty-five  cents.  '  My  son,'  said  the 
father,  « what  do  you  want  with  twenty-five  cents  ? '  *  I  want  it  to 
buy  candy  with,'  cried  the  boy.  '  I  cannot  give  you  twenty-five 
cents,  my  son,  but  will  give  you  five  cents,'  at  the  same  time  putting 
his  thumb  and  finger  into  his  vest  pocket  and  taking  therefrom  five 
cents  in  silver,  which  he  placed  upon  the  desk  before  the  boy.  But 
this  dM  not  reach  Willie's  expectations ;  he  scorned  the  pile,  and 
turning  away  clambered  down-stairs  and  through  the  spacious  halls 
of  the  Capitol,  leaving  behind  him  his  five  cents  and  a  distinct  rever 
beration  of  sound.  Mr.  Lincoln  turned  to  me  and  said,  '  He  will  be 
back  after  that  in  a  few  minutes.'  '  Why  do  you  think  so  ?'  said  I. 
'  Because,  as  soon  as  he  finds  I  will  give  him  no  more  he  will  come 
and  get  it.'  After  the  matter  had  been  nearly  forgotten  and  con 
versation  had  turned  in  an  entirely  different  channel,  Willie  came 
cautiously  in  behind  my  chair  and  that  of  his  father,  picked  up  the 
specie,  and  went  away  without  saying  a  word." — J.  S.  Bliss,  letter, 
Jan.  29,  1867,  MS. 


1 82  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

on  his  nomination,  he  said,*  "  It  is  indeed  most  grate 
ful  to  my  feelings  that  the  responsible  position 
assigned  me  comes  without  conditions."  Out  of 
regard  to  the  dignity  of  the  exalted  station  he  was 
about  to  occupy,  he  was  not  as  free  in  discussing  the 
matter  of  his  probable  appointments  with  some  of 
his  personal  friends  as  they  had  believed  he  would 
be.  In  one  or  two  instances,  I  remember,  the  latter 
were  offended  at  his  seeming  disregard  of  the 
>.  claims  of  old  friendship.  My  advice  was  not  asked 
for  on  such  grave  subjects,  nor  had  I  any  right  or 
reason  to  believe  it  would  be  ;  hence  I  never  felt 
slighted  or  offended.  On  some  occasions  in  our 
office,  when  Mr.  Lincoln  had  come  across  from  the 
State  House  for  a  rest  or  a  chat  with  me,  he  would 
relate  now  and  then  some  circumstance — generally 
an  amusing  one — connected  with  the  settlement  of 
the  cabinet  problem,  but  it  was  said  in  such  a  way 
that  one  would  not  have  felt  free  to  interrogate  him 
about  his  plans.  Soon  after  his  election  I  received 
from  my  friend  Joseph  Medill,  of  Chicago,  a  letter 
which  argued  strongly  against  the  appointment  of 
Simon  Cameron  to  a  place  in  the  cabinet,  and 
which  the  writer  desired  I  should  bring  to  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  attention.  I  awaited  a  favorable  opportunity, 
and  one  evening  when  we  were  alone  in  our  office 
I  gave  it  to  him.  It  was  an  eloquent  protest 
against  the  appointment  of  a  corrupt  and  debased 
man,  and  coming  from  the  source  it  did — the  writer 
being  one  of  Lincoln's  best  newspaper  supporters 
— made  a  deep  impression  on  him.  Lincoln  read 

*  Letter,  May  2ist,  1860,  MS. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  183 

it  over  several  times,  but  refrained  from  expressing 
any  opinion.  He  did  say  however  that  he  felt  him 
self  under  no  promise  or  obligation  to  appoint  any 
one  ;  that  if  his  friends  made  any  agreements  for 
him  they  did  so  over  his  expressed  direction  and 
without  his  knowledge.  At  another  time  he  said 
that  he  wanted  to  give  the  South,  by  way  of  placa- 
tion,  a  place  in  his  cabinet ;  that  a  fair  division  of  the 
country  entitled  the  Southern  States  to  a  reasonable 
representation  there,  and  if  not  interfered  with  he 
would  make  such  a  distribution  as  would  satisfy  all 
persons  interested.  He  named  three  persons  who 
would  be  acceptable  to  him.  They  were  Botts,  of 
Virginia;  Stephens,  of  Georgia;  and  Maynard,  of 
Tennessee.  He  apprehended  no  such  grave  dan 
ger  to  the  Union  as  the  mass  of  people  supposed 
would  result  from  Southern  threats,  and  said  he 
could  not  in  his  heart  believe  that  the  South  de 
signed  the  overthrow  of  the  Government.  This  is 
the  extent  of  my  conversation  about  the  cabinet. 
Thurlow  Weed,  the  veteran  in  journalism  and  poli 
tics,  came  out  from  New  York  and  spent  several 
days  with  Lincoln.  He  was  not  only  the  repre 
sentative  of  Senator  Seward,  but  rendered  the  Presi 
dent-elect  signal  service  in  the  formation  of  his 
cabinet.  In  his  autobiography  Mr.  Weed  relates 
numerous  incidents  of  this  visit.  He  was  one  day 
opposing  the  claims  of  Montgomery  Blair,  who  as 
pired  to  a  cabinet  appointment,  when  Mr.  Lincoln 
inquired  of  Weed  whom  he  would  recommend. 
"  Henry  Winter  Davis,"  was  the  response.  "David 
Davis,  I  see,  has  been  posting  you  up  on  this 
36 


184  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

question,"  retorted  Lincoln.  '•  He  has  Davis  "on 
the  brain.  I  think  Maryland  must  be  a  good  State 
to  move  from."  The  President  then  told  a  story 
of  a  witness  in  court  in  a  neighboring  county,  who 
on  being  asked  his  age  replied,  "Sixty."  Being 
satisfied  he  was  much  older  the  question  was  re 
peated,  and  on  receiving  the  same  answer,  the  court 
admonished  the  witness,  saying,  "  The  court  knows 
you  to  be  much  older  than  sixty."  "Oh,  I  under 
stand  now,"  was  the  rejoinder  ;  "you're  thinking  of 
those  ten  years  I  spent  on  the  eastern  shore  of  Mary 
land  ;  that  was  so  much  time  lost  and  don't  count." 
Before  Mr.  Lincoln's  departure  from  Springfield, 
people  who  knew  him  personally  were  frequently 
asked  what  sort  of  man  he  was.  I  received  many 
letters,  generally  from  the  Eastern  States,  show 
ing  that  much  doubt  still  existed  in  the  minds  of 
the  people  whether  he  would  prove  equal  to  the 
great  task  that  lay  in  store  for  him.  Among  others 
who  wrote  me  on  the  subject  was  the  Hon.  Henry 
Wilson,  late  Vice-president  of  the  United  States, 
whom  I  had  met  during  my  visit  to  Washington 
in  the  spring  of  1858.  Two  years  after  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  death,  Mr.  Wilson  wrote  me  as  follows  :  "  I 
have  just  finished  reading  your  letter  dated  Decem 
ber  21,  1860,  in  answer  to  a  letter  of  mine  asking 
you  to  give  me  your  opinion  of  the  President  just 
elected.  In  this  letter  to  me  you  say  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  what  more  than  four  years  of  observation 
confirmed.  After  stating  that  you  had  been  his 
law  partner  for  over  eighteen  years  and  his  most 
intimate  and  bosom  friend  all  that  time  you  say,  '  I 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  185 

know  him  better  than  he  does  himself.  I  know 
this  seems  a  little  strong,  but  I  risk  the  assertion. 
Lincoln  is  a  man  of  heart — aye,  as  gentle  as  a 
woman's  and  as  tender — but  he  has  a  will  strong  as 
iron.  He  therefore  loves  all  mankind,  hates  slavery 
and  every  form  of  despotism.  Put  these  together 
—love  for  the  slave,  and  a  determination,  a  will,  that 
justice,  strong  and  unyielding,  shall  be  done  when 
he  has  the  right  to  act,  and  you  can  form  your  own 
conclusion.  Lincoln  will  fail  here,  namely,  if  a  ques 
tion  of  political  economy — if  any  question  comes 
up  which  is  doubtful,  questionable,  which  no  man 
can  demonstrate,  then  his  friends  can  rule  him  ;  but 
when  on  justice,  right,  liberty,  the  Government, 
the  Constitution,  and  the  Union,  then  you  may 
all  stand  aside:  he  will  rule  then,  and  no  man  can 
move  him — no  set  of  men  can  do  it.  There  is  no 
fail  here.  This  is  Lincoln,  and  you  mark  my  pre 
diction.  You  and  I  must  keep  the  people  right ; 
God  will  keep  Lincoln  right.'  These  words  of 
yours  made  a  deep  impression  upon  my  mind,  and  I 
came  to  love  and  trust  him  even  before  I  saw  him. 
After  an  acquaintance  of  more  than  four  years  I 
found  that  your  idea  of  him  was  in  all  respects  cor 
rect — that  he  was  the  loving,  tender,  firm,  and  just 
man  you  represented  him  to  be ;  while  upon  some 
questions  in  which  moral  elements  did  not  so 
clearly  enter  he  was  perhaps  too  easily  influenced 
by  others.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  genuine  democrat 
in  feelings,  sentiments,  and  actions.  How  patiently 
and  considerately  he  listened  amid  the  terrible 
pressure  of  public  affairs  to  the  people  who 


1 86  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

thronged  his  ante-room  !  I  remember  calling  upon 
him  one  day  during  the  war  on  pressing  business. 
The  ante-room  was  crowded  with  men  and  women 
seeking  admission.  He  seemed  oppressed,  careworn, 
and  weary.  I  said  to  him,  '  Mr.  President,  you  are 
too  exhausted  to  see  this  throng  waiting  to  see  you  ; 
you  will  wear  yourself  out  and  ought  not  see  these 
people  to-day.'  He  replied,  with  one  of  those 
smiles  in  which  sadness  seemed  to  mingle,  '  They 
don't  want  much  ;  they  get  but  little,  and  I  must 
see  them.'  During  the  war  his  heart  was  oppressed 
and  his  life  burdened  with  the  conflict  between  the 
tenderness  of  his  nature  and  what  seemed  to  be  the 
imperative  demands  of  duty.  In  the  darkest  hours 
of  the  conflict  desertions  from  the  army  were  fre 
quent,  and  army  officers  urgently  pressed  the  execu 
tion  of  the  sentences  of  the  law ;  but  it  was  with 
the  greatest  effort  that  he  would  bring  himself  to 
consent  to  the  execution  of  the  judgment  of  the 
military  tribunals.  I  remember  calling  early  one 
sabbath  morning  with  a  wounded  Irish  officer,  who 
came  to  Washington  to  say  that  a  soldier  who  had 
been  sentenced  to  be  shot  in  a  day  or  two  for  deser 
tion  had  fought  gallantly  by  his  side  in  battle.  I 
told  Mr.  Lincoln  we  had  come  to  ask  him  to  pardon 
the  poor  soldier.  After  a  few  moments'  reflection 
he  said,  *  My  officers  tell  me  the  good  of  the  ser 
vice  demands  the  enforcement  of  the  law  ;  but  it 
makes  my  heart  ache  to  have  the  poor  fellows  shot. 
I  will  pardon  this  soldier,  and  then  you  will  all  join 
in  blaming  me  for  it.  You  censure  me  for  granting 
pardons,  and  yet  you  all  ask  me  to  do  so.'  I  say 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  187 

again,  no  man  had  a  more  loving  and  tender  nature 
than  Mr.  Lincoln." 

Before  departing  for  Washington  Mr.  Lincoln 
went  to  Chicago*  for  a  few  days'  stay,  and  there  by 
previous  arrangement  met  his  old  friend,  Joshua  F. 
Speed.  Both  were  accompanied  by  their  wives, 
and  while  the  latter  were  out  shopping  the  two 
husbands  repaired  to  Speed's  room  at  the  hotel. 
"For  an  hour  or  more,"  relates  Speed,  "we  lived 
over  again  the  scenes  of  other  days.  Finally 
Lincoln  threw  himself  on  the  bed,  and  fixing  his 
eyes  on  a  spot  in  the  ceiling  asked  me  this  ques 
tion,  *  Speed,  what  is  your  pecuniary  condition  ?  are 
you  rich  or  poor  ? '  I  answered,  addressing  him  by 
his  new  title,  '  Mr.  President,  I  think  I  can  antici 
pate  what  you  are  going  to  say.  I'll  speak  candidly 
to  you  on  the  subject.  My  pecuniary  condition  is 
satisfactory  to  me  now ;  you  would  perhaps  call  it 
good.  I  do  not  think  you  have  within  your  gift 
any  office  I  could  afford  to  take.'  Mr.  Lincoln 
then  proposed  to  make  Guthrie,  of  Kentucky,  Sec 
retary  of  War,  but  did  not  want  to  write  to  him — 
asked  me  to  feel  of  him.  I  did  as  requested,  but 
the  Kentucky  statesman  declined  on  the  ground  of 
his  advanced  age,  and  consequent  physical  inability 
to  fill  the  position.  He  gave  substantial  assurance 


*  A  lady  called  one  day  at  the  hotel  where  the  Lincolns  were 
stopping  in  Chicago  to  take  Mrs.  Lincoln  out  for  a  promenade  or  a 
drive.  She  was  met  in  the  parlor  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  who,  after  a 
hurried  trip  upstairs  to  ascertain  the  cause  of  the  delay  in  his  wife's 
appearance,  returned  with  the  report  that  "  She  will  be  down  as 
soon  as  she  has  all  her  trotting  harness  on." 


!88  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

of  his  loyal  sentiments,  however,  and  insisted  that 
the  Union  should  be  preserved  at  all  hazards." 

Late  in  January  Mr.  Lincoln  informed  me  that  he 
was  ready  to  begin  the  preparation  of  his  inaugural 
address.  He  had,  aside  from  his  law  books  and 
the  few  gilded  volumes  that  ornamented  the  centre- 
table  in  his  parlor  at  home,  comparatively  no 
library.  He  never  seemed  to  care  to  own  or  collect 
books.  On  the  other  hand  I  had  a  very  respectable 
collection,  and  was  adding  to  it  every  day.  To  my 
library  Lincoln  very  frequently  had  access.  When, 
therefore,  he  began  on  his  inaugural  speech  he  told 
me  what  works  he  intended  to  consult.  I  looked 
for  a  long  list,  but  when  he  went  over  it  I  was 
greatly  surprised.  He  asked  me  to  furnish  him 
with  Henry  Clay's  great  speech  delivered  in  1850; 
Andrew  Jackson's  proclamation  against  Nullifica 
tion  ;  and  a  copy  of  the  Constitution.  He  after 
wards  called  for  Webster's  reply  to  Hayne,  a  speech 
which  he  read  when  he  lived  at  New  Salem,  and 
which  he  always  regarded  as  the  grandest  specimen 
of  American  oratory.  With  these  few  "  volumes," 
and  no  further  sources  of  reference,  he  locked  himself 
up  in  a  room  upstairs  over  a  store  across  the  street 
from  the  State  House,  and  there,  cut  off  from  all 
communication  and  intrusion,  he  prepared  the 
address.  Though  composed  amid  the  unromantic 
surroundings  of  a  dingy,  dusty,  and  neglected  back 
room,  the  speech  has  become  a  memorable  docu 
ment.  Posterity  will  assign  to  it  a  high  rank 
among  historical  utterances ;  and  it  will  ever  bear 
comparison  with  the  efforts  of  Washington,  Jeffer- 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  ^9 

son,  Adams,  or  any  that  preceded  its  delivery  from 
the  steps  of  the  national  Capitol. 

After  Mr.  Lincoln's  rise  to  national  prominence, 
and  especially  since  his  death,  I  have  often  been 
asked  if  I  did  not  write  this  or  that  paper  for  him;  if  I 
did  not  prepare  or  help  prepare  some  of  his  speeches. 
I  know  that  other  and  abler  friends  of  Lincoln 
have  been  asked  the  same  question.*  To  people 
who  made  such  enquiries  I  always  responded,  "  You 
don't  understand  Mr.  Lincoln.  No  man  ever 
asked  less  aid  then  he ;  his  confidence  in  his  own 
ability  to  meet  the  requirements  of  every  hour  was 
so  marked  that  his  friends  never  thought  of  tender 
ing  their  aid,  and  therefore  no  one  could  share  his 
responsibilities.  I  never  wrote  a  line  for  him  ;  he 
never  asked  me  to.  I  was  never  conscious  of 
having  exerted  any  influence  over  him.  He  often 
called  out  my  views  on  some  philosophical  question, 
simply  because  I  was  a  fond  student  of  philosophy, 
and  conceding  that  I  had  given  the  subject  more 
attention  than  he ;  he  often  asked  as  to  the  use  of  a 
word  orsthe  turn  of  a  sentence,  but  if  I  volunteered 
to  recommend  or  even  suggest  a  change  of  lan 
guage  which  involved  a  change  of  sentiment  I 
found  him  the  most  inflexible  man  I  have  ever 
seen." 

One  more  duty — an  act  of  filial  devotion — 
remained  to  be  done  before  Abraham  Lincoln  could 

*  "  I  know  it  was  the  general  impression  in  Washington  that  I 
knew  all  about  Lincoln's  plans  and  ideas,  but  the  truth  is,  I  knew 
nothing.  He  never  confided  to  me  anything  of  his  purposes."— 
David  Davis,  statement,  September  20,  1866. 


1 90  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

announce  his  readiness  to  depart  for  the  city  of 
Washington — a  place  from  which  it  was  unfortu 
nately  decreed  he  should  never  return.  In  the  first 
week  of  February  he  slipped  quietly  away  from 
Springfield  and  rode  to  Farmington  in  Coles  County, 
where  his  aged  step-mother  was  still  living.  Here, 
in  the  little  country  village,  he  met  also  the  surviv 
ing  members  of  the  Hanks  and  Johnston  families. 
He  visited  the  grave  of  his  father,  old  Thomas  Lin 
coln,  which  had  been  unmarked  and  neglected  for 
almost  a  decade,  and  left  directions  that  a  suitable 
stone  should  be  placed  there  to  mark  the  spot. 
Retracing  his  steps  in  the  direction  of  Springfield 
he  stopped  over-night  in  the  town  of  Charleston, 
where  he  made  a  brief  address,  recalling  many  of  his 
boyhood  exploits,  in  the  public  hall.  In  the  audi 
ence  were  many  persons  who  had  known  him  first 
as  the  stalwart  young  ox-driver  when  his  father's 
family  drove  into  Illinois  from  southern  Indiana. 
One  man  had  brought  with  him  a  horse  which  the 
President-elect,  in  the  earlier  days  of  his  law  practice, 
had  recovered  for  him  in  a  replevin  suit ;  another 
one  was  able  to  recite  from  personal  recollection  the 
thrilling  details  of  the  famous  wrestling  match 
between  Lincoln  the  flat-boatman  in  1830  and 
Daniel  Needham ;  and  all  had  some  reminiscence 
of  his  early  manhood  to  relate.  The  separation 
from  his  step-mother  was  particularly  touching.* 

*  Lincoln's  love  for  his  second  mother  was  a  most  filial  and  affection 
ate  one.  His  letters  show  that  he  regarded  the  relation  truly  as  that 
of  mother  and  son.  November  4,  1851,  he  writes  her  after  the  death 
of  his  father: 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  ig\ 

The  parting,  when  the  good  old  woman,  with  tears 
streaming  down  her  cheeks,  gave  him  a  mother's  ben 
ediction,  expressing  the  fear  that  his  life  might  be 
taken  by  his  enemies,  will  never  be  forgotten  by  those 
who  witnessed  it.  Deeply  impressed  by  this  fare 
well  scene  Mr.  Lincoln  reluctantly  withdrew  from 
the  circle  of  warm  friends  who  crowded  around  him, 
and,  filled  with  gloomy  forebodings  of  the  future, 
returned  to  Springfield.  The  great  questions  of  state 
having  been  pretty  well  settled  in  his  own  mind,  and 
a  few  days  yet  remaining  before  his  final  departure, 
his  neighbors  and  old  friends  called  to  take  leave  of 
him  and  pay  their  "  best  respects."  Many  of  these 
callers  were  from  New  Salem,  where  he  had  made 
his  start  in  life,  and  each  one  had  some  pleasant  or 
amusing  incident  of  earlier  days  to  call  up  when 
they  met.  Hannah  Armstrong,  who  had  "foxed  " 
his  trowsers  with  buckskin  in  the  days  when  he 
served  as  surveyor  under  John  Calhoun,  and  whose 
son  Lincoln  had  afterwards  acquitted  in  the  trial  for 
murder  at  Beardstown,  gave  positive  evidence  of  the 
interest  she  took  in  his  continued  rise  in  the  world. 


"  DEAR  MOTHER  : 

"  Chapman  tells  me  he  wants  you  to  go  and  live  with  him.  If 
I  were  you  I  would  try  it  awhile.  If  you  get  tired  of  it  (as  I 
think  you  will  not)  you  can  return  to  your  own  home.  Chapman 
feels  very  kindly  to  you;  and  I  have  no  doubt  he  will  make  your  situ 
ation  very  pleasant.  "Sincerely  your  son, 

"  A.  LINCOLN." 

On  the  9th  of  the  same  month  he  writes  his  step-brother  John  D. 
Johnston  :  "  If  the  land  can  be  sold  so  that  I  can  get  three  hundred 
dollars  to  put  to  interest  for  mother  I  will  not  object  if  she  does  not. 
But  before  I  will  make  a  deed  the  money  must  be  had,  or  secured 
beyond  all  doubt  at  ten  per  cent." 


1 92  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

She  bade  him  good-bye,  but  was  filled  with  a  presen- 
timent  that  she  would  never  see  him  alive  again. 
"  Hannah,  "  he  said,  jovially,  "  if  they  do  kill  me  I 
shall  never  die  again.",  Isaac  Cogsdale,  another  New 
Salem  pioneer,  came,  and  to  him  Lincoln  again 
admitted  his  love  for  the  unfortunate  Anne  Rut- 
ledge.  Cogsdale  afterwards  told  me  of  this  inter 
view.  It  occurred  late  in  the  afternoon.  Mr.  Nic- 
olay,  the  secretary,  had  gone  home,  and  the  throng  of 
visitors  had  ceased  for  the  day.  Lincoln  asked 
about  ay  the  early  families  of  New  Salem,  calling  up 
the  peculiarities  of  each  as  he  went  over  the  list. 
Of  the  Rutledges  he  said :  "  I  have  loved  the  name 
of  Rutledge  to  this  day.  I  have  kept  my  mind  on 
their  movements  ever  since.  "  Of  Anne  he  spoke 
with  some  feeling :  "  I  loved  her  dearly.  She  was  a 
handsome  girl,  would  have  made  a  good,  loving 
wife ;  she  was  natural,  and  quite  intellectual,  though 
not  highly  educated.  I  did  honestly  and  truly  love 
the  girl,  and  think  often  of  her  now. " 

Early  in  February  the  last  item  of  preparation  for 
the  journey  to  Washington  had  been  made.  Mr.  Lin 
coln  had  disposed  of  his  household  goods  and  furni 
ture  to  a  neighbor,  had  rented  his  house  ;  and  as  these 
constituted  all  the  property  he  owned  in  Illinois 
there  was  no  further  occasion  for  concern  on  that 
score.  In  the  afternoon  of  his  last  day  in  Spring 
field  he  came  down  to  our  office  to  examine  some 
papers  and  confer  with  me  about  certain  legal  mat 
ters  in  which  he  still  felt  some  interest.  On  several 
previous  occasions  he  had  told  me  he  was  coming  over 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  193 

to  the  office  "to  have  a  long  talk  with  me,"  as  he 
expressed  it.  We  ran  over  the  books  and  arranged 
for  the  completion  of  all  unsettled  and  unfinished 
matters.  In  some  cases  he  had  certain  requests  to 
make — certain  lines  of  procedure  he  wished  me  to 
observe.  After  these  things  were  all  disposed  of  he 
crossed  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  room  and  threw 
himself  down  on  the  old  office  sofa,  which,  after 
many  years  of  service,  had  been  mveod  against  the 
wall  for  support.  He  lay  for  some  moments,  his 
face  towards  the  ceiling,  without  either  of  y^s  speak 
ing.  Presently  he  inquired,  "  Billy," — he  always 
called  me  by  that  name, — "  how  long  have  we  been 
together?"  "  Over  sixteen  years,"  I  answered. 
"  We've  never  had  a  cross  word  during  all  that 
time,  have  we?  "  to  which  I  returned  a  vehement, 
"  No,  indeed  we  have  not."  He  then  recalled  some 
incidents  of  his  early  practice  and  took  great  pleas 
ure  in  delineating  the  ludicrous  features  of  many  a 
lawsuit  on  the  circuit.  It  was  at  this  last  interview 
in  Springfield  that  he  told  me  of  the  efforts  that  had 
been  made  by  other  lawyers  to  supplant  me  in  the 
partnership  with  him.  He  insisted  that  such  men 
were  weak  creatures,  who,  to  use  his  own  language, 
"  hoped  to  secure  a  law  practice  by  hanging  to  his 
coat-tail."  I  never  saw  him  in  a  more  cheerful 
mood.  He  gathered  a  bundle  of  books  and  papers 
he  wished  to  take  with  him  and  started  to  go ;  but 
before  leaving  he  made  the  strange  request  that  the 
sign-board  which  swung  on  its  rusty  hinges  at  the 
foot  of  the  stairway  should  remain.  "  Let  it  hang 


194  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

there  undisturbed/'*  he  said,  with  a  significant 
lowering  of  his  voice.  "  Give  our  clients  to  under 
stand  that  the  election  of  a  President  makes  no 
change  in  the  firm  of  Lincoln  and  Herndon.  If  I 
live  I'm  coming  back  some  time,  and  then  we'll  go 
right  on  practising  law  as  if  nothing  had  ever  hap 
pened."  He  lingered  for  a  moment  as  if  to  take 
a  last  look  at  the  old  quarters,  and  then  passed 
through  the  door  into  the  narrow  hallway.  I  accom 
panied  him  downstairs.  On  the  way  he  spoke  of 
the  unpleasant  features  surrounding  the  Presidential 
office.  "  I  am  sick  of  office-holding  already, "  he 
complained,  "and  I  shudder  when  I  think  of  the 
tasks  that  are  still  ahead."  He  said  the  sorrow  of 
parting  from  his  old  associations  was  deeper  than 
most  persons  would  imagine,  but  it  was  more  marked 
in  his  case  because  of  the  feeling  which  had  become 
irrepressible  that  he  would  never  return  alive.  I 
argued  against  the  thought,  characterizing  it  as  an 
illusory  notion  not  in  harmory  or  keeping  with  the 

*  In  answer  to  the  many  inquiries  made  of  me,  I  will  say  here 
that  during  this  last  interview  Mr.  Lincoln,  for  the  first  time,  brought 
up  the  subject  of  an  office  under  his  administration.  He  asked  me  if 
I  desired  an  appointment  at  his  hands,  and,  if  so,  what  I  wanted.  I 
answered  that  I  had  no  desire  for  a  Federal  office,  that  I  was  then 
holding  the  office  of  Bank  Commissioner  of  Illinois  under  appoint 
ment  of  Governor  Bissel,  and  that  if  he  would  request  my  retention 
in  office  by  Yates,  the  incoming  Governor,  I  should  be  satisfied. 
He  made  the  necessary  recommendation,  and  Governor  Yates  com 
plied.  I  was  present  at  the  meeting  between  Yates  and  Lincoln,  and  I 
remember  that  the  former,  when  Lincoln  urged  my  claims  for  reten 
tion  in  office,  asked  Lincoln  to  appoint  their  mutual  friend  A.  Y. 
Ellis  postmaster  at  Springfield.  I  do  not  remember  whether  Lincoln 
promised  to  do  so  or  not,  but  Ellis  was  never  appointed. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  195 

popular  ideal  of  a  President.  "  But  it  is  in  keeping 
with  my  philosophy, "  was  his  quick  retort.  Our 
conversation  was  frequently  broken  in  upon  by  the 
interruptions  of  passers-by,  who,  each  in  succession, 
seemed  desirous  of  claiming  his  attention.  At 
length  he  broke  away  from  them  all.  Grasping  my 
hand  warmly  and  with  a  fervent  "  Good-bye,"  he 
disappeared  down  the  street,  and  ne-yer  came  back 
to  the  office  again.  *  On  the  morning  following  this 
last  interview,  the  nth  day  of  February,  the  Presi 
dential  party  repaired  to  the  railway  station,  where 
the  train  which  was  to  convey  them  to  Washington 
awaited  the  ceremony  of  departure.  The  inten 
tion  was  to  stop  at  many  of  the  principal  cities  along 
the  route,  and  plenty  of  time  had  been  allotted  for 
the  purpose.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  told  me  that  a  man 
named  Wood  had  been  recommended  to  him  by  Mr. 
Seward,  and  he  had  been  placed  in  charge  of  the 
party  as  a  sort  of  general  manager.  The  party, 
besides  the  President,  his  wife,  and  three  sons,  Rob 
ert,  William,  and  Thomas,  consisted  of  his  brother- 
in-law,  Dr.  W.  S.  Wallace,  David  Davis,  Norman  B. 
Judd,  Elmer  E.  Ellsworth,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  and 
the  President's  two  secretaries,  John  G.  Nicolay  and 
John  Hay.  Colonel  E.  V.  Sumner  and  other  army 
gentlemen  were  also  in  the  car,  and  some  friends  of 
Mr.  Lincoln — among  them  O.  H.  Browning,  Gov 
ernor  Yates,  and  ex-Governor  Moore — started  with 
the  party  from  Springfield,  but  dropped  out  at 
points  along  the  way.  The  day  was  a  stormy  one, 
with  dense  clouds  hanging  heavily  overhead.  A 
goodly  throng  of  Springfield  people  had  gath- 


196  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

ered  to  see  the  distinguished  party  safely  off. 
After  the  latter  had  entered  the  car  the  people  closed 
about  it  until  the  President  appeared  on  the  rear 
platform.  He  stood  for  a  moment  as  if  to  suppress 
evidences  of  his  emotion,  and  removing  his  hat  made 
the  following  brief  but  dignified  and  touching 
address  :  *  "  Friends  :  No  one  who  has  never  been 
placed  in  a  like  position  can  understand  my  feelings 
at  this  hour,  nor  the  oppressive  sadness  I  feel  at  this 
parting.  For  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  I 
have  lived  among  you,  and  during  all  that  time  I 
have  received  nothing  but  kindness  at  your  hands. 
Here  I  have  lived  from  my  youth  until  now  I  am  an 
old  man.  Here  the  most  sacred  ties  of  earth  were 
assumed.  Here  all  my  children  were  born ;  and 
here  one  of  them  lies  buried.  To  you,  dear  friends, 
I  owe  all  that  I  have,  all  that  I  am.  All  the  strange, 
checkered  past  seems  to  crowd  now  upon  my  mind. 
To-day  I  leave  you.  I  go  to  assume  a  task  more 
difficult  than  that  which  devolved  upon  Washington. 
Unless  the  great  God  who  assisted  him  shall  be 
with  and  aid  me,  I  must  fail ;  but  if  the  same 
omniscient  mind  and  almighty  arm  that  directed 
and  protected  him  shall  guide  and  support  me  I 
shall  not  fail — I  shall  succeed.  Let  us  all  pray  that 

*  I  was  not  present  when  Mr.  Lincoln  delivered  his  farewell  at 
the  depot  in  Springfield,  and  never  heard  what  he  said.  I  have 
adopted  the  version  of  his  speech  as  published  in  our  papers.  There 
has  been  some  controversy  over  the  exact  language  he  used  on  that 
occasion,  and  Mr.  Nicolay  has  recently  published  the  speech  from 
what  he  says  is  the  original  MS.,  partly  in  his  own  and  partly  in  the 
handwriting  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Substantially,  however,  it  is  like  the 
speech  as  reproduced  here  from  the  Springfield  paper. 


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THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  1 97 

the  God  of  our  fathers  may  not  forsake  us  now. 
To  him  I  commend  you  all.  Permit  me  to  ask  that 
with  equal  sincerity  and  faith  you  will  invoke  his 
wisdom  and  guidance  for  me.  With  these  words 
I  must  leave  you,  for  how  long  I  know  not.  Friends, 
one  and  all,  I  must  now  bid  you  an  affectionate 
farewell." 

At  the  conclusion  of  this  neat  and  appropriate 
farewell  the  train  rolled  slowly  out,  and  Mr.  Lincoln, 
still  standing  in  the  doorway  of  the  rear  car,  took 
his  last  view  of  Springfield.-*  The  journey  had  been 
as  well  advertised  as  it  had  been  carefully  planned, 
and  therefore,  at  every  town  along  the  route,  and  at 
every  stop,  great  crowds  were  gathered  to  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  President-elect.*  Mr.  Lincoln  usu- 


*  "  Before  Mr.  Lincoln's  election  in  1860  I,  then  a  child  of  eleven 
years,  was  presented  with  his  lithograph.  Admiring  him  with  my 
whole  heart,  I  thought  still  his  appearance  would  be  much  improved 
should  he  cultivate  his  whiskers.  Childish  thoughts  must  have  utter 
ance.  So  I  proposed  the  idea  to  him,  expressing  as  well  as  I  was 
able  the  esteem  in  which  he  was  held  among  honest  men.  A  few 
days  after  I  received  this  kind  and  friendly  letter : 

" '  SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  October  19,  1860. 
" '  Miss  GRACE  BEDELL. 

" '  My  Dear  Little  Miss  : — Your  very  agreeable  letter  of  the 
1 5th  is  received.  I  regret  the  necessity  of  saying  I  have  no  daugh 
ter.  I  have  three  sons — one  seventeen,  one  nine,  and  one  seven. 
They  with  their  mother  constitute  my  whole  family.  As  to  the 
whiskers,  as  I  have  never  worn  any,  do  you  not  think  that  people 
would  call  it  a  piece  of  silly  affectation  were  I  to  begin  wearing  them 
now? 

" '  I  am  your  true  friend  and  sincere  well-wisher, 

" '  A.  LINCOLN.' 

"  It  appears  I  was  not  forgotten,  for  after  his  election  to  the  Presi 
dency,  while  on  his  journey  to  Washington,  the  train  stopped  at 
Westfield,  Chautauqua  County,  at  which  place  I  then  resided.  Mr, 


198  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

ally  gratified  the  wishes  of  the  crowds,  who  called 
him  out  for  a  speech  whether  it  was  down  on  the 
regular  programme  of  movements  or  not.  In  all 
cases  his  remarks  were  well-timed  and  sensibly 
uttered.  At  Indianapolis,  where  the  Legislature  was 
in  session,  he  halted  for  a  day  and  delivered  a 
speech  the  burden  of  which  was  an  answer  to  the 
Southern  charges  of  coercion  and  invasion.  From 
Indianapolis  he  moved  on  to  Cincinnati  and  Co 
lumbus,  at  the  last-named  place  meeting  the  Legis 
lature  of  Ohio.  The  remainder  of  the  journey  con 
vinced  Mr.  Lincoln  of  his  strength  in  the  affec 
tions  of  the  people.  Many,  no  doubt,  were  full  of 
curiosity  to  see  the  now  famous  rail-splitter,  but  all 
were  outspoken  and  earnest  in  their  assurances  of 
support.  At  Steubenville,  Pittsburg,  Cleveland, 
Buffalo,  Albany,  New  York,  and  Philadelphia  he 
made  manly  and  patriotic  speeches.  These 
speeches,  plain  in  language  and  simple  in  illus 
tration,  made  eVery  man  who  heard  them  a 
stronger  friend  than  ever  of  the  Government.  He 
was  skilful  enough  to  warn  the  people  of  the 
danger  ahead  and  to  impress  them  with  his  ability 
to  deal  properly  with  the  situation,  without  in  any 
case  outlining  his  intended  policy  or  revealing  the 

Lincoln  said,  '  I  have  a  correspondent  in  this  place,  a  little  girl 
whose  name  is  Grace  Bedell,  and  I  would  like  to  see  her.'  I  was 
conveyed  to  him ;  he  stepped  from  the  cars,  extending  his  hand  and 
saying,  '  You  see  I  have  let  these  whiskers  grow  for  you,  Grace,' 
kissed  me,  shook  me  cordially  by  the  hand,  and  was  gone.  I  was 
frequently  afterward  assured  of  his  remembrance. ' " — Grace  G. 
Bedell,  MS.  letter,  Dec.  14,  1866. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

forces  he  held  in  reserve.*  At  Pittsburg  he  advised 
deliberation,  and  begged  the  American  people  to 
keep  their  temper  on  both  sides  of  the  line.  At  Cleve 
land  he  insisted  that  "  the  crisis,  as  it  is  called,  is  an 
artificial  crisis  and  has  no  foundation  in  fact ; "  and 
at  Philadelphia  he  assured  his  listeners  that  under 
his  administration  there  would  be  "  no  bloodshed 
unless  it  was  forced  upon  the  Government,  and  then 
it  would  be  compelled  to  act  in  self-defence."  This 
last  utterance  was  made  in  front  of  Independence 

*  The  following  are  extracts  from  Mr.  Lincoln's  letters  written 
during  the  campaign  in  answer  to  his  position  with  reference  to  the 
anticipated  uprisings  in  the  Southern  States.  They  are  here  pub 
lished  for  the  first  time  : 

[From  a  letter  to  L.  Montgomery  Bond,  Esq.,  Oct.  15,  1860.] 
"  I  certainly  am  in  no  temper  and  have  no  purpose  to  embitter  the 
feelings  of  the  South,  but  whether  I  am  inclined  to  such  a  course  as 
would  in  fact  embitter  their  feelings  you  can  better  judge  by  my 
published  speeches  than  by  anything  I  would  say  in  a  short  letter  if 
I  were  inclined  now,  as  I  am  not,  to  define  my  position  anew." 

[From  a  letter  to  Samuel  Haycraft,  dated,     Springfield,  111.,  June 

4,  i86o.l 

"  Like  yourself  I  belonged  to  the  old  Whig  party  from  its  origin  to 
its  close.  I  never  belonged  to  the  American  party  organization,  nor 
ever  to  a  party  called  a  Union  party;  though  I  hope  I  neither  am  or 
ever  have  been  less  devoted  to  the  Union  than  yourself  or  any  other 
patriotic  man." 

[Private  and  Confidential.] 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  Nov.  13,  1860. 
"  HON.  SAMUEL  HAYCRAFT. 

"  My  Dear  Sir  /—Yours  of  the  gth  is  just  received.  I  can  only 
answer  briefly.  Rest  fully  assured  that  the  good  people  of  the  South 
who  will  put  themselves  in  the  same  temper  and  mood  towards  me 
which  you  do  will  find  no  cause  to  complain  of  me. 

"  Yours  very  truly, 

"  A.  LINCOLN." 


200  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

Hall,  where,  a  few  moments  before,  he  had  unfurled 
to  the  breeze  a  magnificent  new  flag,  an  impressive 
ceremony  performed  amid  the  cheers  swelling  from 
the  vast  sea  of  upturned  faces  before  him.  From 
Philadelphia  his  journey  took  him  to  Harrisburg, 
where  he  visited  both  branches  of  the  Legislature 
then  in  session.  For  an  account  of  the  remainder 
of  this  now  famous  trip  I  beg  to  quote  from  the 
admirable  narrative  of  Dr.  Holland.  Describing 
the  welcome  tendered  him  by  the  Legislature  at 
Harrisburg,  the  latter  says  :  "  At  the  conclusion  of 
the  exercises  of  the  day  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  was 
known  to  be  very  weary,  was  permitted  to  pass 
undisturbed  to  his  apartments  in  the  Jones  House. 
It  was  popularly  understood  that  he  was  to  start 
for  Washington  the  next  morning,  and  the  people 
of  Harrisburg  supposed  they  had  only  taken  a  tem 
porary  leave  of  him.  He  remained  in  his  rooms 
until  nearly  six  o'clock,  when  he  passed  into  the 
street,  entered  a  carriage  unobserved  in  company 
with  Colonel  Lamon,  and  was  driven  to  a  special 
train  on  the  Pennsylvania  railroad  in  waiting  for 
him.  As  a  matter  of  precaution  the  telegraph 
wires  were  cut  the  moment  he  left  Harrisburg,  so 
that  if  his  departure  should  be  discovered  intelligence 
of  it  could  not  be  communicated  at  a  distance.  At 
half-past  ten  the  train  arrived  at  Philadelphia,  and 
here  Mr.  Lincoln  was  met  by  a  detective,  who  had 
a  carriage  in  readiness  in  which  the  party  were 
driven  to  the  depot  of  the  Philadelphia  Wilming 
ton,  and  Baltimore  railroad.  At  a  quarter  past 
eleven  they  arrived  and  very  fortunately  found  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  2O1 

regular  train,  which  should  have  left  at  eleven, 
delayed.  The  party  took  berths  in  the  sleeping- 
car,  and  without  change  of  cars  passed  directly 
through  Baltimore  to  Washington,  where  Mr.  Lin 
coln  arrived  at  half-past  six  o'clock  in  the  morning 
and  found  Mr.  Washburne  anxiously  awaiting  him. 
He  was  taken  into  a  carriage  and  in  a  few  minutes 
he  was  talking  over  his  adventures  with  Senator 
Seward  at  Willard's  Hotel."  The  remaining  mem 
bers  of  the  Presidential  party  from  whom  Mr.  Lin 
coln  separated  at  Harrisburg  left  that  place  on  the 
special  train  intended  for  him;  and  as  news  of  his  safe 
arrival  in  Washington  had  been  already  telegraphed 
over  the  country  no  attempt  was  made  to  interrupt 
their  safe  passage  through  Baltimore.  As  is  now 
generally  well  known  many  threats  had  up  to  that 
time  been  made  that  Mr.  Lincoln,  on  his  way  to 
Washington,  should  never  pass  through  Baltimore 
alive.  It  was  reported  and  believed  that  conspira 
cies  had  been  formed  to  attack  the  train,  blow  it  up 
with  explosives  or  in  some  equally  effective  way  dis 
pose  of  the  President-elect.  Mr.  Seward  and  others 
were  so  deeply  impressed  with  the  grave  features  of 
the  reports  afloat  that  Allan  Pinkerton,  the  noted  de 
tective  of  Chicago,  was  employed  to  investigate  the 
matter  and  ferret  out  the  conspiracy,  if  any  existed. 
This  shrewd  operator  went  to  Baltimore,  opened  an 
office  as  a  stock-broker,  and  through  his  assistants 
— the  most  adroit  and  serviceable  of  whom  was  a 
woman — was  soon  in  possession  of  inside  informa 
tion.  The  change  of  plans  and  trains  at  Harrisburg 
was  due  to  his  management  and  advice.  Some 


2O2  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

years  before  his  death  Mr.  Pinkerton  furnished  me 
with  a  large  volume  of  the  written  reports  of  his 
subordinates  and  an  elaborate  account  by  himself 
of  the  conspiracy  and  the  means  he  employed  to 
ferret  it  out.  The  narrative,  thrilling  enough  in 
some  particulars,  is  too  extended  for  insertion  here. 
It  is  enough  for  us  to  know  that  the  tragedy  was 
successfully  averted  and  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  safely 
landed  in  Washington. 

In  January  preceding  his  departure  from  Spring 
field  Mr.  Lincoln,  becoming  somewhat  annoyed,  not 
to  say  alarmed,  at  the  threats  emanating  from 
Baltimore  and  other  portions  of  the  country  adja 
cent  to  Washington,  that  he  should  not  reach  the 
latter  place  alive,  and  that  even  if  successful  in 
reaching  the  Capitol  his  inauguration  should  in  some 
way  be  prevented,  determined  to  ascertain  for  him 
self  what  protection  would  be  given  him  in  case  an 
effort  should  be  made  by  an  individual  or  a  mob  to 
do  him  violence.  He  sent  a  young  military  officer 
in  the  person  of  Thomas  Mather,  then  Adjutant- 
General  of  Illinois,  to  Washington  with  a  letter  to 
General  Scott,  in  which  he  recounted  the  threats  he 
had  heard  and  ventured  to  inquire  as  to  the  prob 
ability  of  any  attempt  at  his  life  bejng  made  on  the 
occasion  of  his  inauguration.  General  Mather,  on 
his  arrival  in  Washington,  found  General  Scott 
confined  to  his  room  by  illness  and  unable  to  see 
visitors.  On  Mather  calling  a  second  time  and 
sending  in  his  letter  he  was  invited  up  to  the  sick 
man's  chamber.  "  Entering  the  room,"  related 
Mather  in  later  years/'  I  found  the  old  warrior,  griz- 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  203 

zly  and  wrinkled,  propped  up  in  the  bed  by  an 
embankment  of  pillows  behind  his  back.  His  hair 
and  beard  were  considerably  disordered,  the  flesh 
seemed  to  lay  in  rolls  across  his  warty  face  and 
neck,  and  his  breathing  was  not  without  great  labor. 
In  his  hand  he  still  held  Lincoln's  letter.  He  was 
weak  from  long-continued  illness,  and  trembled  very 
perceptibly.  It  was  evident  that  the  message  from 
Lincoln  had  wrought  up  the  old  veteran's  feelings. 
'  General  Mather,'  he  said  to  me,  in  great  agitation, 
1  present  my  compliments  to  Mr.  Lincoln  when  you 
return  to  Springfield,  and  tell  him  I  expect  him  to 
come  on  to  Washington  as  soon  as  he  is  ready.  Say 
to  him  that  I'll  look  after  those  Maryland 
and  Virginia  rangers  myself ;  I'll  plant  cannon  at 
both  ends  of  Pennsylvania  avenue,  and  if  any  of 
them  show  their  heads  or  raise  a  finger  I'll  blow 
them  to  hell.'  On  my  return  to  Springfield,"  con 
cludes  Mather,  "  I  hastened  to  assure  Mr.  Lincoln 
that,  if  Scott  were  alive  on  the  day  of  the  inaugura 
tion,  there  need  be  no  alarm  lest  the  performance  be 
interrupted  by  any  one.  I  felt  certain  the  hero  of 
Lundy's  Lane  would  give  the  matter  the  care  and 
attention  it  deserved." 

Having  at  last  reached  his  destination  in  safety,  * 
Mr.  Lincoln  spent  the  few  days  preceding  his  inau 
guration  at  Willard's  Hotel,  receiving  an  uninter 
rupted  stream  of  visitors  and  friends.  In  the  few 
unoccupied  moments  allotted  him,  he  was  carefully 
revising  his  inaugural  address.  On  the  morning  of 
the  4th  of  March  he  rode  from  his  hotel  with  Mr. 
Buchanan  in  an  open  barouche  to  the  Capitol. 


204  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

There,  slightly  pale  and  nervous,  he  was  introduced 
to  the  assembled  multitude  by  his  old  friend 
Edward  D.  Baker,  and  in  a  fervid  and  impressive 
manner  delivered  his  address.  At  its  conclusion 
the  customary  oath  was  administered  by  the  vener 
able  Chief  Justice  Taney,  and  he  was  now  clothed 
with  all  the  powers  and  privileges  of  Chief  Magis 
trate  of  the  nation.  He  accompanied  Mr.  Bu 
chanan  to  the  White  House,  and  here  the  historic 
bachelor  of  Lancaster  bade  him  farewell,  bespeak 
ing  for  him  a  peaceful,  prosperous,  and  successful 
administration. 

One  who  witnessed  the  impressive  scene  left  the 
following  graphic  description  of  the  inauguration 
and  its  principal  incidents:  "Near  noon  I  found 
myself  a  member  of  the  motley  crowd  gathered 
about  the  side  entrance  to  Willard's  Hotel.  Soon 
an  open  barouche  drove  up,  and  the  only  occupant 
stepped  out.  A  large,  heavy,  awkward-moving 
man,  far  advanced  in  years,  short  and  thin  gray 
hair,  full  face,  plentifully  seamed  and  wrinkled, 
head  curiously  inclined  to  the  left  shoulder,  a  low- 
crowned,  broad-brimmed  silk  hat,  an  immense 
white  cravat  like  a  poultice,  thrusting  the  old- 
fashioned  standing  collar  up  to  the  ears,  dressed  in 
black  throughout,  with  swallow-tail  coat  not  of  the 
newest  style.  It  was  President  Buchanan,  calling  to 
take  his  successor  to  the  Capitol.  In  a  few  minutes 
he  reappeared,  with  Mr.  Lincoln  on  his  arm ;  the 
two  took  seats  side-by-side,  and  the  carriage  rolled 
away,  followed  by  a  rather  disorderly  and  certainly 
not  very  imposing  procession.  I  had  ample  time  to 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  2O5 

walk  to  the  Capitol,  and  no  difficulty  in  securing 
a  place  where  everything  could  be  seen  and  heard 
to  the  best  advantage.  The  attendance  at  the 
inauguration  was,  they  told  me,  unusually  small, 
many  being  kept  away  by  anticipated  disturbance, 
as  it  had  been  rumored — truly,  too — that  General 
Scott  himself  was  fearful  of  an  outbreak,  and  had 
made  all  possible  military  preparations  to  meet 
the  emergency.  A  square  platform  had  been  built 
out  from  the  steps  to  the  eastern  portico,  with 
benches  for  distinguished  spectators  on  three  sides. 
Douglas,  the  only  one  I  recognized,  sat  at  the 
extreme  end  of  the  seat  on  the  right  of  the  narrow 
passage  leading  from  the  steps.  There  was  no 
delay,  and  the  gaunt  form  of  the  President-elect 
was  soon  visible,  slowly  making  his  way  to  the 
front.  To  me,  at  least,  he  was  completely  meta 
morphosed — partly  by  his  own  fault,  and  partly 
through  the  efforts  of  injudicious  friends  and 
ambitious  tailors.  He  was  raising  (to  gratify  a 
very  young  lady,  it  is  said)  a  crop  of  whiskers,  of 
the  blacking-brush  variety,  coarse,  stiff,  and  un 
graceful  ;  and  in  so  doing  spoiled,  or  at  least 
seriously  impaired,  a  face  which,  though  never 
handsome,  had  in  its  original  state  a  peculiar 
power  and  pathos.  On  the  present  occasion  the 
whiskers  were  reinforced  by  brand-new  clothes 
from  top  to  toe ;  black  dress-coat,  instead  of  the 
usual  frock,  black  cloth  or  satin  vest,  black  panta 
loons,  and  a  glossy  hat  evidently  just  out  of  the 
box.  To  cap  the  climax  of  novelty,  he  carried  a 


2C>6  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

huge  ebony  cane,  with  a  gold  head  the  size  of  an 
egg.  In  these,  to  him,  strange  habiliments,  he 
looked  so  miserably  uncomfortable  that  I  could  not 
help  pitying  him.  Reaching  the  platform,  his  dis 
comfort  was  visibly  increased  by  not  knowing  what 
to  do  with  hat  and  cane ;  and  so  he  stood  there, 
the  target  for  ten  thousand  eyes,  holding  cane  in 
one  hand  and  hat  in  the  other,  the  very  picture  of 
helpless  embarrassment.  After  some  hesitation 
he  pushed  the  cane  into  a  corner  of  the  railing,  but 
could  not  find  a  place  for  the  hat  except  on  the 
floor,  where  I  could  see  he  did  not  like  to  risk  it. 
Douglas,  who  fully  took  in  the  situation,  came  to 
rescue  of  his  old  friend  and  rival,  and  held  the 
precious  hat  until  the  owner  needed  it  again ; 
a  service  which,  if  predicted  two  years  before, 
would  probably  have  astonished  him.  The  oath 
of  office  was  administered  by  Chief  Justice  Taney, 
whose  black  robes,  attenuated  figure,  and  cadaver 
ous  countenance  reminded  me  of  a  galvanized 
corpse.  Then  the  President  came  forward,  and 
read  his  inaugural  address  in  a  clear  and  distinct 
voice.  It  was  attentively  listened  to  by  all,  but 
the  closest  listener  was  Douglas,  who  leaned  for 
ward  as  if  to  catch  every  word,  nodding  his  head 
emphatically  at  those  passages  which  most  pleased 
him.  There  was  some  applause,  not  very  much 
nor  very  enthusiastic.  I  must  not  forget  to  men 
tion  the  presence  of  a  Mephistopheles  in  the  per 
son  of  Senator  Wigfall,  of  Texas,  who  stood  with 
folded  arms  leaning  against  the  doorway  of  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  20; 

Capitol,  looking  down  upon  the  crowd  and  the 
ceremony  with  a  contemptuous  air,  which  suf 
ficiently  indicated  his  opinion  of  the  whole  per 
formance.  To  him  the  Southern  Confederacy  was 
already  an  accomplished  fact.  He  lived  to  see  it 
the  saddest  of  fictions." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

LINCOLN,  the  President,  did  not  differ  greatly  from 
Lincoln  the  lawyer  and  politician.  In  the  latter 
capacity  only  had  his  old  friends  in  Illinois  known 
him.  For  a  long  time  after  taking  his  seat  they 
were  curious  to  know  what  change,  if  any,  his 
exalted  station  had  made  in  him.  He  was  no 
longer  amid  people  who  had  seen  him  grow  from 
the  village  lawyer  to  the  highest  rank  in  the  land, 
and  whose  hands  he  could  grasp  in  the  confidence 
of  a  time-tried  friendship  ;  but  now  he  was  sur 
rounded  by  wealth,  power,  fashion,  influence,  by 
adroit  politicians  and  artful  schemers  of  every  sort. 
In  the  past  his  Illinois  and  particularly  his  Spring 
field  friends  *  had  shared  the  anxiety  and  responsi- 

*  Lincoln,  even  after  his  elevation  to  the  Presidency,  always  had 
an  eye  out  for  his  friends,  as  the  following  letters  will  abundantly 
prove : 

"EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  WASHINGTON,  April  20,  1864. 
"  CALVIN  TRUESDALE,  ESQ. 

"  Postmaster,  Rock  Island,  111. : 

"  Thomas  J.  Pickett,  late  agent  of  the  Quarter 
master's  Department  for  the  Island  of  Rock  Island,  has  been  re 
moved  or  suspended  from  that  position  on  a  charge  of  having  sold 
timber  and  stone  from  the  island  for  his  private  benefit.  Mr.  Pickett 
is  an  old  acquaintance  and  friend  of  mine,  and  I  will  thank  you,  if 
you  will,  to  set  a  day  or  days  and  place  on  and  at  which  to  take 
testimony  on  the  point.  Notify  Mr.  Pickett  and  one  J.  B.  Danforth 

208 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  209 

bility  of  every  step  he  had  made ;  but  now  they  were 
no  longer  to  continue  in  the  partnership.  Many  of 
them  wanted  no  office,  but  all  of  them  felt  great 
interest  as  well  as  pride  in  his  future.  A  few 
attempted  to  keep  up  a  correspondence  with  him, 
but  his  answers  were  tardy  and  irregular.  Because 
he  did  not  appoint  a  goodly  portion  of  his  early 
associates  to  comfortable  offices,  and  did  not  in 
terest  himself  in  the  welfare  of  everyone  whom 
he  had  known  in  Illinois,  or  met  while  on  the  cir 
cuit,  the  erroneous  impression  grew  that  his  eleva- 

(who  as  I  understand  makes  the  charge)  to  be  present  with  their  wit 
nesses.  Take  the  testimony  in  writing  offered  by  both  sides,  and 
report  it  in  full  to  me.  Please  do  this  for  me. 

"  Yours  truly, 

"A.LINCOLN." 

The  man  Pickett  was  formerly  the  editor  of  a  newspaper  in 
northern  Illinois,  and  had,  to  use  *n  expression  of  later  days,  inau 
gurated  in  the  columns  of  his  paper  Lincoln's  boom  for  the  Presi 
dency.  When  he  afterwards  fell  under  suspicion,  no  one  came  to 
his  rescue  sooner  than  the  President  himself. 

The  following  letter  needs  no  explanation : 

"  EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  WASHINGTON,  August  27,  1862. 
"Hon.  WASH.  TALCOTT. 

"My  Dear  Sir: — I  have  determined  to  appoint  you  collector.  I 
now  have  a  very  special  request  to  make  of  you,  which  is,  that  you 
will  make  no  war  upon  Mr.  Washburne,  who  is  also  my  friend,  and 
of  longer  standing  than  yourself.  I  will  even  be  obliged  if  you  can 
do  something  for  him  if  occasion  presents. 

"  Yours  truly, 

"  A.  LINCOLN." 

Mr.  Talcott,  to  whom  it  was  addressed,  was  furnished  a  letter  of 
introduction  by  the  President,  as  follows : 

"  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  the  Commissioner  of  Internal 
Revenue  will  please  see  Mr.  Talcott,  one  of  the  best  men  there  is, 
and,  if  any  difference,  one  they  would  like  better  than  they  do  me. 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

August  18,  1862. 


210  ME  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

tion  had  turned  his  head.  There  was  no  founda 
tion  for  such  an  unwarranted  conclusion.  Lincoln 
had  not  changed  a  particle.  He  was  overrun  with 
duties  and  weighted  down  with  cares ;  his  surround 
ings  were  different  and  his  friends  were  new,  but  he 
himself  was  the  same  calm,  just,  and  devoted  friend 
as  of  yore.  His  letters  were  few  and  brief,  but  they 
showed  no  lack  of  gratitude  or  appreciation,  as  the 
following  one  to  me  will  testify : 

"EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  February  3,  1862. 

"DEAR  WILLIAM: 

"  Yours  of  January  3oth  is  just  received.  Do 
just  as  you  say  about  the  money  matters.  As 
you  well  know,  I  have  not  time  enough  to  write  a 
letter  of  respectable  length.  God  bless  you,  says 

"  Your  friend, 

"A.  LINCOLN."* 

His  letters  to  others  were  of  the  same  warm  and 
generous  tenor,  but  yet  the  foolish  notion  prevailed 
that  he  had  learned  to  disregard  the  condition  and 
claims  of  his  Springfield  friends.  One  of  the  latter 
who  visited  Washington  returned  somewhat  dis 
pleased  because  Mr.  Lincoln  failed  to  inquire  after 
the  health  and  welfare  of  each  one  of  his  old  neigh 
bors.  The  report  spread  that  he  cared  nothing  for 
his  home  or  the  friends  who  had  made  him  what 
he  was.  Those  who  entertained  this  opinion  of  the 
man  forgot  that  he  was  not  exactly  the  property  of 

*  On  February  19,  1863, 1  received  this  despatch  from  Mr.  Lincoln : 

"  Would  you  accept  a  job  of  about  a  month's  duration,  at  St.  Louis, 
$5  a  day  and  mileage.    Answer. 

"A.  LINCOLN." 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  211 

Springfield  and  Illinois,  but  the  President  of  all  the 
States  in  the  Union.* 

In  this  connection  it  may  not  be  out  of  order  to 
refer  briefly  to  the  settlement  by  Mr.  Lincoln  of  the 
claims  his  leading  Illinois  friends  had  on  him.  As 
before  observed  his  own  election  to  the  Presidency 
cancelled  Illinois  as  a  factor  in  the  cabinet  problem, 
but  in  no  wise  disposed  of  the  friends  whom  the  pub 
lic  expected  and  whom  he  himself  intended  should 
be  provided  for.  Of  these  latter  the  oldest  and 
most  zealous  and  effective  was  David  Davis.f  It  is 
not  extravagance,  taking  their  long  association 
together  in  mind,  to  say  that  Davis  had  done  more 
for  Lincoln  than  any  dozen  other  friends  he  had. 
Of  course,  after  Lincoln  was  securely  installed  in 
office,  the  people,  especially  in  Illinois,  awaited  his 
recognition  of  Davis.  What  was  finally  done  is 
minutely  told  in  a  letter  by  Leonard  Swett,  which  it 
is  proper  here  to  insert : 


*The  following  letter  from  a  disappointed  Illinois  friend  will 
serve  to  illustrate  the  perplexities  that  beset  Lincoln  in  disposing  of 
the  claims  of  personal  friendship.  It  was  written  by  a  man  of  no 
inconsiderable  reputation  in  Illinois,  where  he  at  one  time  filled  a 
State  office  :  "  Lincoln  is  a  singular  man,  and  I  must  confess  I  never 
knew  him.  He  has  for  twenty  years  past  used  me  as  a  plaything  to 
accomplish  his  own  ends ;  but  the  moment  he  was  elevated  to  his 
proud  position  he  seems  all  at  once  to  have  entirely  changed  his 
whole  nature  and  become  altogether  a  new  being.  He  knows  no 
one,  and  the  road  to  his  favor  is  always  open  to  his  enemies,  while  the 
door  is  hermetically  sealed  to  his  old  friends." 

t  "  1  had  done  Lincoln  many,  many  favors,  had  electioneered  for 
him,  spent  my  money  for  him,  worked  and  toiled  for  him."  — 
David  Davis,  statement,  September  20,  1866. 


212  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

"  CHICAGO,  ILL.,  August  29, 1887. 

"  WILLIAM  H.  HERNDON. 

" My  Dear  Sir: — Your  inquiry  in  reference 
to  the  circumstances  of  the  appointment  of  David 
Davis  as  one  of  the  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court 
reached  me  last  evening.  In  reply  I  beg  leave  to 
recall  the  fact,  that  in  1860  the  politicians  of  Illi 
nois  were  divided  into  three  divisions,  which  were 
represented  in  the  Decatur  convention  by  the  votes 
on  the  nomination  for  Governor.  The  largest  vote 
was  for  Norman  B.  Judd,  of  Chicago,  his  strength  in 
the  main  being  the  northern  part  of  the  State.  I 
was  next  in  order  of  strength,  and  Richard  Yates  the 
third,  but  the  divisions  were  not  materially  unequal. 
The  result  was  Yates  was  nominated,  his  strength 
being  about  Springfield  and  Jacksonville,  extending 
to  Quincy  on  the  west,  and  mine  was  at  Blooming- 
ton  and  vicinity  and  south  and  southeast. 

"  These  divisions  were  kept  up  awhile  after  Mr. 
Lincoln's  election,  and  were  considered  in  the  distri 
bution  of  Federal  patronage.  A  vacancy  in  the 
United  States  Senate  occurred  early  in  1861  by  the 
death  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  and  Governor  Yates 
appointed  Oliver  H.  Browning,  of  Quincy,  to  fill  the 
vacancy.  There  was  also  a  vacancy  upon  the  Su 
preme  Bench  of  the  United  States  to  be  filled  from 
this  general  vicinity  by  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  early 
part  of  his  administration,  and  Judge  Davis,  of 
Bloomington,  and  Mr.  Browning,  of  Quincy,  were 
aspirants  for  the  position.  Mr.  Browning  had  the 
advantage  that  Lincoln  was  new  in  his  seat,  and  Sen- 
atorswere  august  personages;  and,  being  in  the  Sen 
ate  and  a  most  courteous  and  able  gentleman,  Mr. 
Browning  succeeded  in  securing  nearly  all  the  sena 
torial  strength,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  nearly  swept 
off  his  feet  by  the  current  of  influence.  Davis*  sup 
porters  were  the  circuit  lawyers  mainly  in  the  east 
ern  and  central  part  of  the  State.  These  lawyers 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  2 1 3 

were  at  home,  and  their  presence  was  not  a  living 
force  felt  constantly  by  the  President  at  Wash 
ington. 

"  I  was  then  living  at  Bloomington,  and  met  Judge 
Davis  every  day.  As  months  elapsed  we  used  to 
get  word  from  Washington  in  reference  to  the  con 
dition  of  things;  finally,  one  day  the  word  came 
that  Lincoln  had  said,  '  I  do  not  know  what  I  may 
do  when  the  time  comes,  but  there  has  never  been  a 
day  when  if  I  had  to  act  I  should  not  have  appointed 
Browning.'  Judge  Davis,  General  Orme,  and  myself 
held  a  consultation  in  my  law-office  at  Bloomington. 
We  decided  that  the  remark  was  too  Lincolnian  to 
be  mistaken  and  no  man  but  he  could  have  put  the 
situation  so  quaintly.  We  decided  also  that  the 
appointment  was  gone,  and  sat  there  glum  over  the 
situation.  I  finally  broke  the  silence,  saying  in  sub 
stance,  'The  appointment  is  gone  and  I  am  going 
to  pack  my  carpet-sack  for  Washington.'  *  No,  you 
are  not,'  said  Davis.  '  Yes,  I  am,'  was  my  reply. 
1  Lincoln  is  being  swept  off  his  feet  by  the  influence 
of  these  Senators,  and  I  will  have  the  luxury  of  one 
more  talk  with  him  before  he  acts.' 

"  I  did  go  home,  and  two  days  thereafter,  in  the 
morning  about  seven  o'clock — for  I  knew  Mr. 
Lincoln's  habits  well — was  at  the  White  House 
and  spent  most  of  the  forenoon  with  him.  I 
tried  to  impress .  upon  him  that  he  had  been 
brought  into  prominence  by  the  Circuit  Court 
lawyers  of  the  old  eighth  Circuit,  headed  by  Judge 
Davis.  *  If, '  I  said,  *  Judge  Davis,  with  his  tact 
and  force,  had  not  lived,  and  all  other  things  had 
been  as  they  were,  I  believe  you  would  not  now 
be  sitting  where  you  are.'  He  replied  gravely, 
*  Yes,  that  is  so.'  '  Now  it  is  a  common  law  of 
mankind,'  said  I,  '  that  one  raised  into  prominence  is 
expected  to  recognize  the  force  that  lifts  him,  or,  if 
from  a  pinch,  the  force  that  lets  him  out.  The  Czat 


214  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

Nicholas  was  once  attacked  by  an  assassin  ;  a  kindly 
hand  warded  off  the  blow  and  saved  his  life.  The 
Czar  hunted  out  the  owner  of  that  hand  and  strewed 
his  pathway  with  flowers  through  life.  The  Emperor 
Napoleon  III.  has  hunted  out  everybody  who  even 
tossed  him  a  biscuit  in  his  prison  at  Ham  and  has 
made  him  rich.  Here  is  Judge  Davis,  whom  you 
know  to  be  in  every  respect  qualified  for  this  posi 
tion,  and  you  ought  in  justice  to  yourself  and  public 
expectation  to  give  him  this  place.'  We  had  an  ear 
nest  pleasant  forenoon,  and  I  thought  I  had  the  best 
of  the  argument,  and  I  think  he  thought  so  too. 

"  I  left  him  and  went  to  Willard's  Hotel  to  think 
over  the  interview,  and  there  a  new  thought  struck 
me.  I  therefore  wrote  a  letter  to  Mr.  Lincoln  and 
returned  to  the  White  House.  Getting  in,  I  read  it 
to  him  and  left  it  with  him.  It  was,  in  substance, 
that  he  might  think  if  he  gave  Davis  this  place  the 
latter  when  he  got  to  Washington  would  not  give 
him  any  peace  until  he  gave  me  a  place  equally  as 
good ;  that  I  recognized  the  fact  that  he  could  not 
give  this  place  to  Davis,  which  would  be  charged  to 
the  Bloomington  faction  in  our  State  politics,  and 
then  give  me  anything  I  would  have  and  be  just  to 
the  party  there  ;  that  this  appointment,  if  made, 
should  kill  '  two  birds  with  one  stone  ; '  that  I  would 
accept  it  as  one-half  for  me  and  one-half  for  the 
Judge  ;  and  that  thereafter,  if  I  or  any  of  my  friends 
ever  troubled  him,  he  could  draw  that  letter  as  a 
plea  in  bar  on  that  subject.  As  I  read  it  Lincoln 
said,  '  If  you  mean  that  among  friends  as  it  reads  I 
will  take  it  and  make  the  appointment.'  He  at 
once  did  as  he  said. 

"  He  then  made  a  request  of  the  Judge  after  his 
appointment  in  reference  to  a  clerk  in  his  circuit, 
and  wrote  him  a  notice  of  the  appointment,  which 
Davis  received  the  same  afternoon  I  returned  to 
Bloomington. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  2 1  5 

"Judge  Davis  was  about  fifteen  years  my  senior. 
I  had  come  to  his  circuit  at  the  age  of  twenty-four, 
and  between  him  and  Lincoln  I  had  grown  up  lean- 
ing  in  hours  of  weakness  on  their  own  great  arms 
for  support.  I  was  glad  of  the  opportunity  to  put 
in  the  mite  of  my  claims  upon  Lincoln  and  give  it 
to  Davis,  and  have  been  glad  I  did  it  every  day 
since. 

"  An  unknown  number  of  people  have  almost 
every  week  since,  speaking  perhaps  extravagantly, 
asked  me  in  a  quasi-confidential  manner,  '  How  was 
it  that  you  and  Lincoln  were  so  intimate  and  he 
never  gave  you  anything  ?  '  I  have  generally  said, 
'  It  seems  to  me  that  is  my  question,  and  so  long  as 
I  don't  complain  I  do  not  see  why  you  should.'  I 
may  be  pardoned  also  for  saying  that  I  have  not 
considered  every  man  not  holding  an  office  out  of 
place  in  life.  I  got  my  eyes  open  on  this  subject 
before  I  got  an  office,  and  as  in  Washington  I  saw 
the  Congressman  in  decline  I  prayed  that  my  latter 
end  might  not  be  like  his. 

"  Yours  truly, 

"  LEONARD  SWETT." 

Before  his  departure  for  Washington,  Mr.  Lin- 
coin  had  on  several  occasions  referred  in  my  pres 
ence  to  the  gravity  of  the  national  questions  that 
stared  him  in  the  face ;  yet  from  what  he  said  I 
caught  no  definite  idea  of  what  his  intentions  were. 
He  told  me  he  would  rely  upon  me  to  keep  him 
informed  of  the  situation  about  home,  what  his 
friends  were  saying  of  him,  and  whether  his  course 
was  meeting  with  their  approval.  He  suggested 
that  I  should  write  him  frequently,  and  that  arrange 
ments  would  be  made  with  his  private  secretary, 
Mr.  Nicolay,  that  my  letters  should  pass  through 
38 


2l6  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

the  latter's  hands  unopened.  This  plan  was  ad- 
hered  to,  and  I  have  every  reason  now  to  believe 
that  all  my  letters  to  Lincoln,  although  they  con 
tained  no  great  secrets  of  state,  passed  unread  into 
his  hands.  I  was  what  the  newspaper  men  would 
call  a  "  frequent  contributor."  I  wrote  oftener  than 
he  answered,  sometimes  remitting  him  his  share  of 
old  fees,  sometimes  dilating  on  national  affairs,  but 
generally  confining  myself  to  local  politics  and  news 
in  and  around  Springfield.  I  remember  of  writing 
him  two  copious  letters,  one  on  the  necessity  of 
keeping  up  the  draft,  the  other  admonishing  him 
to  hasten  his  Proclamation  of  Emancipation.  In 
the  latter  I  was  especially  fervid,  assuring,  him  if  he 
emancipated  the  slaves,  he  could  "  go  down  the 
other  side  of  life  filled  with  the  consciousness  of 
duty  well  done,  and  along  a  pathway  blazing  with 
eternal  glory."  How  my  rhetoric  or  sentiments 
struck  him  I  never  learned,  for  in  the  rush  of  execu 
tive  business  he  never  responded  to  either  of  the 
letters.  Late  in  the  summer  of  1861,  as  elsewhere 
mentioned  in  these  chapters,  I  made  my  first  and 
only  visit  to  Washington  while  he  was  President. 
My  mission  was  intended  to  promote  the  prospects 
of  a  brother-in-law,  Charles  W.  Chatterton,  who 
desired  to  lay  claim  to  an  office  in  the  Bureau  of 
Indian  Affairs.  Mr.  Lincoln  accompanied  me  to 
the  office  of  the  Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs, — 
William  P.  Dole  of  Paris,  Illinois, — told  a  good 
story,  and  made  the  request  which  secured  the 
coveted  office — an  Indian  agency — in  an  amazingly 
short  time.  This  was  one  of  the  few  favors  I  asked 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  217 

of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  he  granted  it  "  speedily — with 
out  delay  ;  freely — without  purchase  ;  and  fully — > 
without  denial."  I  remained  in  Washington  for 
several  days  after  this,  and,  notwithstanding  the 
pressure  of  business,  he  made  me  spend  a  good  por 
tion  of  the  time  at  the  White  House.  One  thing  he 
could  scarcely  cease  from  referring  to  was  the  per 
sistence  of  the  office-seekers.  They  slipped  in,  he 
said,  through  the  half-opened  doors  of  the  Execu 
tive  Mansion  ;  they  dogged  his  steps  if  he  walked  ; 
they  edged  their  way  through  the  crowds  and 
thrust  their  papers  in  his  hands  when  he  rode;* 
and,  taking  it  all  in  all,  they  well-nigh  worried  him 
to  death.  He  said  that,  if  the  Government  passed 
through  the  Rebellion  without  dismemberment, 
there  was  the  strongest  danger  of  its  falling  a  prey 
to  the  rapacity  of  the  office-seeking  class.  "  This 
human  struggle  and  scramble  for  office,"  were  his 
words,  "for  a  way  to  live  without  work,  will 
finally  test  the  strength  of  our  institutions."  A 
good  part  of  the  day  during  my  stay  I  would  spend 
with  him  in  his  office  or  waiting-room.  I  saw  the 
endless  line  of  callers,  and  met  the  scores  of  digni 
taries  one  usually  meets  at  the  White  House,  even 
now  ;  but  nothing  took  place  worthy  of  special  men 
tion  here.  One  day  Horace  Maynard  and  Andrew 
Johnson,  both  senators  from  Tennessee,  came  in 
arm-in-arm.  They  declined  to  sit  down,  but  at 

*  He  said  that  one  day,  as  he  was  passing  down  Pennsylvania 
avenue,  a  man  came  running  after  him,  hailed  him,  and  thrust  a 
bundle  of  papers  in  his  hands.  It  angered  him  not  a  little,  and  he 
pitched  the  papers  back,  saying,  "  I'm  not  going  to  open  shop  here." 


21 8  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

once  set  to  work  to  discuss  with  the  President  his 
recent  action  in  some  case  in  which  they  were  inter 
ested.  Maynard  seemed  very  earnest  in  what  he 
said.  "  Beware,  Mr.  President,"  he  said,  "  and  do 
not  go  too  fast.  There  is  danger  ahead."  "  I 
know  that,"  responded  Lincoln,  good-naturedly, "but 
I  shall  go  just  so  fast  and  only  so  fast  as  I  think 
I'm  right  and  the  people  are  ready  for  the  step." 
Hardly  half-a-dozen  words  followed,  when  the  pair 
wheeled  around  and  walked  away.  The  day  fol 
lowing  I  left  Washington  for  home.  I  separated 
from  Mr.  Lincoln  at  the  White  House.  He  fol 
lowed  me  to  the  rear  portico,  where  I  entered  the 
carriage  to  ride  to  the  railroad  depot.  He  grasped 
me  warmly  by  the  hand  and  bade  me  a  fervent 
"•  Good-bye."  It  was  the  last  time  I  ever  saw  him 
alive. 

Mrs.  Ninian  Edwards,  who,  it  will  be  remembered, 
was  the  sister  of  Mrs.  Lincoln,  some  time  before  her 
death  furnished  me  an  account  of  her  visit  to  Wash 
ington,  some  of  the  incidents  of  which  are  so  charac 
teristic  that  I  cannot  refrain  from  giving  them  room 
here.  This  lady,  without  endeavoring  to  suppress 
mention  of  her  sister's  many  caprices  and  eccentric 
ities  while  mistress  of  the  White  House,  remarked 
that,  having  been  often  solicited  by  the  Lincolns  to 
visit  them,  she  and  her  husband,  in  answer  to  the 
cordial  invitation,  at  last  made  the  journey  to 
Washington.  "  One  day  while  there,"  she  relates, 
"  in  order  to  calm  his  mind,  to  turn  his  attention 
away  from  business  and  cheer  him  up,  I  took  Mr. 
Lincoln  down  through  the  conservatory  belonging 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  219 

to  the  Executive  Mansion,  and  showed  him  the 
world  of  flowers  represented  there.  He  followed  me 
patiently  through.  '  How  beautiful  these  flowers 
are !  how  gorgeous  these  roses  !  Here  are  exotics,' 
I  exclaimed,  in  admiration,  '  gathered  from  the 
remotest  corners  of  the  earth,  and  grand  beyond 
description.'  A  moody  silence  followed,  broken 
finally  by  Mr.  Lincoln  with  this  observation:  '  Yes, 
this  whole  thing  looks  like  spring  ;  but  do  you  know 
I  have  never  been  in  here  before.  I  don't  know 
why  it  is  so,  but  I  never  cared  for  flowers ;  I  seem 
to  have  no  taste,  natural  or  acquired,  for  such 
things.'  I  induced  him  one  day,"  continued 
Mrs.  Edwards,  "  to  walk  to  the  Park  north  of  the 
White  House.  He  hadn't  been  there,  he  said,  for  a 
year.  On  such  occasions,  when  alone  or  in  the  com 
pany  of  a  close  friend,  and  released  from  the 
restraint  of  his  official  surroundings,  he  was  wont  to 
throw  from  his  shoulders  many  a  burden.  He  was 
a  man  I  loved  and  respected.  He  was  a  good  man, 
an  honest  and  true  one.  Much  of  his  seeming  dis 
regard,  which  has  been  tortured  into  ingratitude, 
was  due  to  his  peculiar  construction.  His  habits, 
like  himself,  were  odd  and  wholly  irregular.  He 
would  move  around  in  a  vague,  abstracted  way,  as  if 
unconscious  of  his  own  or  any  one  else's  existence. 
He  had  no  expressed  fondness  for  anything,  and  ate 
mechanically.  I  have  seen  him  sit  down  at  the 
table  absorbed  in  thought,  and  never,  unless  recalled 
to  his  senses,  would  he  think  of  food.  But,  however 
peculiar  and  secretive  he  may  have  seemed,  he  was 
anything  but  cold.  Beneath  what  the  world  saw 


22O  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

lurked  a  nature  as  tender  and  poetic  as  any  I  ever 
knew.  The  death  of  his  son  Willie,  which  occurred 
in  Washington,  made  a  deep  impression  on  him. 
It  was  the  first  death  in  his  family,  save  an  infant 
who  died  a  few  days  after  its  birth  in  Springfield. 
On  the  evening  we  strolled  through  the  Park  he 
spoke  of  it  with  deep  feeling,  and  he  frequently 
afterward  referred  to  it.  When  I  announced  my 
intention  of  leaving  Washington  he  was  much 
affected  at  the  news  of  my  departure.  We  were 
strolling  through  the  White  House  grounds,  when  he 
begged  me  with  tears  in  his  eyes  to  remain  longer. 
'  You  have  such  strong  control  and  such  an  influ 
ence  over  Mary,'  he  contended,  *  that  when  troub 
les  come  you  can  console  me.'  The  picture  of 
the  man's  despair  never  faded  from  my  vision. 
Long  after  my  return  to  Springfield,  on  reverting 
to  the  sad  separation,  my  heart  ached  because  I 
was  unable  in  my  feeble  way  to  lighten  his 
burden." 

In  the  summer  of  1866  I  wrote  to  Mrs.  Lincoln, 
then  in  Chicago,  asking  for  a  brief  account  of  her 
own  and  her  husband's  life  or  mode  of  living  while 
at  the  White  House.  She  responded  as  follows :  * 

"375  West  Washington  Street, 

CHICAGO,  ILL.,  August  28,  1866. 

"HON.  WM.  H.  HERNDON. 

" My  Dear  Sir: — Owing  to  Robert's  absence 
from  Chicago  your  last  letter  to  him  was  only 
shown  me  last  evening.  The  recollection  of  my 

*From  MSS,  in  Author's  possession. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  221 

beloved  husband's  truly  affectionate  regard  for  you, 
and  the  knowledge  of  your  great  love  and  rever 
ence  for  the  best  man  that  ever  lived,  would  of  it 
self  cause  you  to  be  cherished  with  the  sincerest  re 
gard  by  my  sons  and  myself.  In  my  overwhelming 
bereavement  those  who  loved  my  idolized  husband 
aside  from  disinterested  motives  are  very  precious 
to  me  and  mine.  My  grief  has  been  so  uncontrol 
lable  that,  in  consequence,  I  have  been  obliged  to 
bury  myself  in  solitude,  knowing  that  many  whom 
I  would  see  could  not  fully  enter  into  the  state  of 
my  feelings.  I  have  been  thinking  for  some  time 
past  I  would  like  to  see  you  and  have  a  long  con 
versation.  I  wish  to  know  if  you  will  be  in  Spring 
field  next  Wednesday  week,  September  4  ;  if  so,  at 
ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  you  will  find  me  at  the 
St.  Nicholas  Hotel.  Please  mention  this  visit  to 
Springfield  to  no  one.  It  is  a  most  sacred  one,  as 
you  may  suppose,  to  visit  the  tomb  which  contains 
my  all  in  life — my  husband.  ...  If  it  will  not  be 
convenient,  or  if  business  at  the  time  specified 
should  require  your  absence,  should  you  visit  Chi 
cago  any  day  this  week  I  will  be  pleased  to  see 
you.  I  remain, 

"  Very  truly, 

"  MARY  LINCOLN." 

I  met  Mrs.  Lincoln  at  the  hotel  in  Springfield  ac 
cording  to  appointment.  Our  interview  was  some 
what  extended  in  range,  but  none  the  less  interest 
ing.  Her  statement  made  at  the  time  now  lies 
before  me.  "  My  husband  intended,"  she  said, 
"  when  he  was  through  with  his  Presidential  term,  to 
take  me  and  our  boys  with  him  to  Europe.  After 
his  return  from  Europe  he  intended  to  cross  the 
Rocky  Mountains  and  go  to  California,  where  the  sol- 


222  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

diers  were  to  be  digging  out  gold  to  pay  the  national 
debt.  During  his  last  days  he  and  Senator  Sumner 
became  great  friends,  and  were  closely  attached  to 
each  other.  They  were  down  the  river  after  Rich 
mond  was  taken — were  full  of  joy  and  gladness  at 
the  thought  of  the  war  being  over.  Up  to  1864 
Mr.  Lincoln  wanted  to  live  in  Springfield,  and  if  he 
died  be  buried  there  also  ;  but  after  that  and  only 
a  short  time  before  his  death  he  changed  his  mind 
slightly,  but  never  really  settled  on  any  particular 
place.  The  last  time  I  remember  of  his  referring 
to  the  matter  he  said  he  thought  it  would  be  good 
for  himself  and  me  to  spend  a  year  or  more  travel 
ling.  As  to  his  nature,  he  was  the  kindest  man, 
most  tender  husband,  and  loving  father  in  the  world. 
He  gave  us  all  unbounded  liberty,  saying  to  me 
always  when  I  asked  for  anything,  '  You  know 
what  you  want,  go  and  get  it,'  and  never  asking  if 
it  were  necessary.  He  was  very  indulgent  to  his 
children.  He  never  neglected  to  praise  them  for 
any  of  their  good  acts.  He  often  said,  '  It  is  my 
pleasure  that  my  children  are  free  and  happy,  and 
unrestrained  by  parental  tyranny.  Love  is  the 
chain  whereby  to  bind  a  child  to  its  parents.' 

"  My  husband  placed  great  reliance  on  my  knowl 
edge  of  human  nature,  often  telling  me,  when  about 
to  make  some  important  appointment,  that  he  had 
no  knowledge  of  men  and  their  motives.  It  was 
his  intention  to  remove  Seward  as  soon  as  peace 
with  the  South  was  declared.  He  greatly  disliked 
Andrew  Johnson.  Once  the  latter,  when  we  were 
in  company,  followed  us  around  not  a  little.  It 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  22$ 

displeased  Mr.  Lincoln  so  much  he  turned  abruptly 
and  asked,  loud  enough  to  be  heard  by  others, 
'  Why  is  this  man  forever  following  me  ? '  At  an 
other  time,  when  we  were  down  at  City  Point,  John 
son,  still  following  us,  was  drunk.  Mr.  Lincoln  in 
desperation  exclaimed,  '  For  God's  sake  don't  ask 
Johnson  to  dine  with  us.'  Sumner,  who  was  along, 
joined  in  the  request.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  mild  in  his 
manners,  but  he  was  a  terribly  firm  man  when  he 
set  his  foot  down.  None  of  us,  no  man  or  woman, 
could  rule  him  after  he  had  once  fully  made  up  his 
mind.  I  could  always  tell  when  in  deciding  any 
thing  he  had  reached  the  ultimatum.  At  first  he 
was  very  cheerful,  then  he  lapsed  into  thoughtful- 
ness,  bringing  his  lips  together  in  a  firm  compres 
sion.  When  these  symptoms  developed  I  fashioned 
myself  accordingly,  and  so  did  all  others  have  to  do 
sooner  or  later.  When  we  first  went  to  Washing 
ton  many  thought  Mr.  Lincoln  was  weak,  but  he 
rose  grandly  with  the  circumstances.  I  told  him 
once  of  the  assertion  I  had  heard  coming  from  the 
friends  of  Seward,  that  the  latter  was  the  power 
behind  the  throne ;  that  he  could  rule  him.  He 
replied,  '  I  may  not  rule  myself,  but  certainly 
Seward  shall  not.  The  only  ruler  I  have  is  my  con 
science — following  God  in  it — and  these  men  will 
have  to  learn  that  yet.' 

"  Some  of  the  newspaper  attacks  on  him  gave  him 
great  pain.  I  sometimes  read  them  to  him,  but  he 
would  beg  me  to  desist,  saying,  '  I  have  enough  to 
bear  now,  but  yet  I  care  nothing  for  them.  If  I'm 
right  I'll  live,  and  if  wrong  I'll  die  anyhow;  so  let 


224  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

them  fight  at  me  unrestrained/  My  playful  re 
sponse  would  be,  '  The  way  to  learn  is  to  hear  both 
sides.'  I  once  assured  him  Chase  and  certain  others 
who  were  scheming  to  supplant  him  ought  to  be 
restrained  in  their  evil  designs.  '  Do  good  to  them 
who  hate  you/  was  his  generous  answer,  '  and  turn 
their  ill-will  into  friendship.' 

"  I  often  told  Mr.  Lincoln  that  God  would  not  let 
any  harm  come  of  him.  We  had  passed  through 
four  long  years — terrible  and  bloody  years — un 
scathed,  and  I  believed  we  would  be  released  from  all 
danger.  He  gradually  grew  into  that  belief  him 
self,  and  the  old  gloomy  notion  of  his  unavoidable 
taking-off  was  becoming  dimmer  as  time  passed 
away.  Cheerfulness  merged  into  joyfulness.  The 
skies  cleared,  the  end  of  the  war  rose  dimly  into 
view  when  the  great  blow  came  and  shut  him  out 
forever." 

For  a  glimpse  of  Lincoln's  habits  while  a  resident 
of  Washington  and  an  executive  officer,  there  is  no 
better  authority  than  John  Hay,  who  served  as  one 
of  his  secretaries.  In  1866,  Mr.  Hay,  then  a  mem 
ber  of  the  United  States  Legation  in  Paris,  wrote 
me  an  interesting  account,  which  so  faithfully 
delineates  Lincoln  in  his  public  home  that  I  cannot 
refrain  from  quoting  it  entire.  Although  the  letter 
was  written  in  answer  to  a  list  of  questions  I  asked, 
and  was  prepared  without  any  attempt  at  arrange 
ment,  still  it  is  none  the  less  interesting.  "  Lin 
coln  went  to  bed  ordinarily,"  it  begins,  "from  ten 
to  eleven  o'clock,  unless  he  happened  to  be  kept  up 
by  important  news,  in  which  case  he  would  fre- 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  22$ 

quently  remain  at  the  War  Department  till  one  of 
two.  He  rose  early.  When  he  lived  in  the  country 
at  the  Soldiers'  Home  he  would  be  up  and  dressed, 
eat  his  breakfast  (which  was  extremely  frugal,  an 
egg,  a  piece  of  toast,  coffee,  etc.),  and  ride  into  Wash 
ington,  all  before  eight  o'clock.  In  the  winter,  at  the 
White  House,  he  was  not  quite  so  early.  He  did 
not  sleep  well,  but  spent  a  good  while  in  bed. 
'Tad '  usually  slept  with  him.  He  would  lie  around 
the  office  until  he  fell  asleep,  and  Lincoln  would 
shoulder  him  and  take  him  off  to  bed.  He  pre 
tended  to  begin  business  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morn 
ing,  but  in  reality  the  ante-rooms  and  halls  were 
full  long  before  that  hour — people  anxious  to  get 
the  first  axe  ground.  He  was  extremely  unmethod 
ical  ;  it  was  a  four  years'  struggle  on  Nicolay's  part 
and  mine  to  get  him  to  adopt  some  systematic  rules. 
He  would  break  through  every  regulation  as  fast  as 
it  was  made.  Anything  that  kept  the  people  them 
selves  away  from  him  he  disapproved,  although 
they  nearly  annoyed  the  life  out  of  him  by  unrea 
sonable  complaints  and  requests.  He  wrote  very 
few  letters,  and  did  not  read  one  in  fifty  that  he 
received.  At  first  we  tried  to  bring  them  to  his 
notice,  but  at  last  he  gave  the  whole  thing  over 
to  me,  and  signed,  without  reading  them,  the  letters 
I  wrote  in  his  name.  He  wrote  perhaps  half-a- 
dozen  a  week  himself — not  more.  Nicolay  received 
members  of  Congress  and  other  visitors  who  had 
business  with  the  Executive  office,  communicated 
to  the  Senate  and  House  the  messages  of  the  Presi 
dent,  and  exercised  a  general  supervision  over  the 


226  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN, 

business.  I  opened  and  read  the  letters,  answered 
them,  looked  over  the  newspapers,  supervised  the 
clerks  who  kept  the  records,  and  in  Nicolay's  absence 
did  his  work  also.  When  the  President  had  any 
rather  delicate  matter  to  manage  at  a  distance  from 
Washington  he  rarely  wrote,  but  sent  Nicolay  or  me. 
The  House  remained  full  of  people  nearly  all  day. 
At  noon  the  President  took  a  little  lunch — a  biscuit, 
a  glass  of  milk  in  winter,  some  fruit  or  grapes  in 
summer.  He  dined  between  five  and  six,  and  we 
went  off  to  our  dinner  also.  Before  dinner  was  over, 
members  and  Senators  would  come  back  and  take 
up  the  whole  evening.  Sometimes,  though  rarely, 
he  shut  himself  up  and  would  see  no  one.  Some 
times  he  would  run  away  to  a  lecture,  or  concert,  or 
theatre  for  the  sake  of  a  little  rest.  He  was  very 
abstemious— ate  less  than  any  man  I  know.  He 
drank  nothing  but  water,  not  from  principle  but  be 
cause  he  did  not  like  wine  or  spirits.  Once,  in  rather 
dark  days  early  in  the  war,  a  temperance  committee 
came  to  him  and  said  that  the  reason  we  did  not  win 
was  because  our  army  drank  so  much  whiskey  as  to 
bring  the  curse  of  the  Lord  upon  them.  He  said  it 
was  rather  unfair  on  the  part  of  the  aforesaid  curse, 
as  the  other  side  drank  more  and  worse  whiskey  than 
ours  did.  He  read  very  little.  He  scarcely  ever 
looked  into  a  newspaper  unless  I  called  his  attention 
to  an  article  on  some  special  subject.  He  frequently 
said,  '  I  know  more  about  it  than  any  of  them. '  It  is 
absurd  to  call  him  a  modest  man.  No  great  man 
was  ever  modest.  It  was  his  intellectual  arrogance 
and  unconscious  assumption  of  superiority  that 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  22? 

men  like  Chase  and  Sumner  never  could  forgive. 
I  believe  that  Lincoln  is  well  understood  by  the 
people  ;  but  there  is  a  patent-leather,  kid-glove  set 
who  know  no  more  of  him  than  an  owl  does  of  a 
comet  blazing  into  his  blinking  eyes.*  Their  esti 
mates  of  him  are  in  many  cases  disgraceful  exhibi 
tions  of  ignorance  and  prejudice.  Their  effeminate 
natures  shrink  instinctively  from  the  contact  of  a 
great  reality  like  Lincoln's  character.  I  consider 
Lincoln's  republicanism  incarnate — with  all  its  faults 
and  all  its  virtues.  As,  in  spite  of  some  rudeness, 
republicanism  is  the  sole  hope  of  a  sick  world,  so 
Lincoln,  with  all  his  foibles,  is  the  greatest  character 
since  Christ." 

In  1863  Mr.  Lincoln  was  informed  one  morning 
that  among  the  visitors  in  the  ante-room  of  the 
White  House  was  a  man  who  claimed  to  be  his 
relative.  He  walked  out  and  was  surprised  to  find 

*  Bancroft's  eulogy  on  Lincoln  never  pleased  the  latter's  lifelong 
friends — those  who  knew  him  so  thoroughly  and  well.  February  16, 
1866,  David  Davis,  who  had  heard  it,  wrote  me  :  "  You  will  see  Mr. 
Bancroft's  oration  before  this  reaches  you.  It  is  able,  but  Mr.  Lin 
coln  is  in  the  background.  His  analysis  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  character 
is  superficial.  It  did  not  please  me.  How  did  it  satisfy  you  ?  "  On 
the  22d  he  again  wrote  :  "  Mr.  Bancroft  totally  misconceived  Mr. 
Lincoln's  character  in  applying  '  unsteadiness '  and  confusion  to  it. 
Mr.  Lincoln  grew  more  steady  and  resolute,  and  his  ideas  were  never 
confused.  If  there  were  any  changes  in  him  after  he  got  here  they 
were  for  the  better.  I  thought  him  always  master  of  his  subject. 
He  was  a  much  more  self-possessed  man  than  I  thought.  He 
thought  f or  himself,  which  is  a  rare  quality  nowadays.  How  could 
Bancroft  know  anything  about  Lincoln  except  as  he  judged  of  him  as 
the  public  do  ?  He  never  saw  him,  and  is  himself  as  cold  as  an  icicle. 
I  should  never  have  selected  an  old  Democratic  politician,  and  that 
one  from  Massachusetts,  to  deliver  an  eulogy  on  Lincoln." 


228  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

his  boyhood  friend  and  cousin,  Dennis  Hanks. 
The  latter  had  come  to  see  his  distinguished  rela 
tive  on  a  rather  strange  mission.  A  number  of 
persons  living  in  Coles  County,  in  Illinois,  offended 
at  the  presence  and  conduct  of  a  few  soldiers  who 
were  at  home  from  the  war  on  furlough  at  the 
town  of  Charleston,  had  brought  about  a  riot,  in 
which  encounter  several  of  the  latter  had  been 
killed.  Several  of  the  civilian  participants  who  had 
acted  as  leaders  in  the  strife  had  been  arrested  and 
sent  to  Fort  McHenry  or  some  other  place  of  con 
finement  equally  as  far  from  their  homes.  The 
leading  lawyers  and  politicians  of  central  Illinois 
were  appealed  to,  but  they  and  all  others  who  had 
tried  their  hands  had  been  signally  unsuccessful  in 
their  efforts  to  secure  the  release  of  the  prisoners. 
Meanwhile  some  one  of  a  sentimental  turn 
had  conceived  the  idea  of  sending  garrulous  old 
Dennis  Hanks  to  Washington,  fondly  believing  that 
his  relationship  to  the  President  might  in  this  last 
extremity  be  of  some  avail.  The  novelty  of  the  pro 
ject  secured  its  adoption  by  the  prisoners'  friends, 
and  Dennis,  arrayed  in  a  suit  of  new  clothes,  set  out 
for  the  national  capital.  I  have  heard  him  describe 
this  visit  very  minutely.  How  his  appearance  in 
Washington  and  his  mission  struck  Mr.  Lincoln  can 
only  be  imagined.  The  President,  after  listening  to 
him  and  learning  the  purpose  of  his  visit,  retired  to 
an  adjoining  room  and  returned  with  an  extremely 
large  roll  of  papers  labelled,  "  The  Charleston  Riot 
Case,"  which  he  carefully  untied  and  gravely 
directed  his  now  diplomatic  cousin  to  read.  Subse- 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  22$ 

quently,  and  as  if  to  continue  the  joke,  he  sent  him 
down  to  confer  with  the  Secretary  of  War.  He 
soon  returned  from  the  latter's  office  with  the  report 
that  the  head  of  the  War  Department  could  not  be 
found ;  and  it  was  well  enough  that  he  did  not 
meet  that  abrupt  and  oftentimes  demonstrative 
official.  In  the  course  of  time,  however,  the  latter 
happened  in  at  the  Executive  Mansion,  and  there, 
in  the  presence  of  Dennis,  the  President  sought  to 
reopen  the  now  noted  Charleston  case.  Adopting 
Mr.  Hanks'  version,  the  Secretary,  with  his  char 
acteristic  plainness  of  speech,  referring  to  the  prison 
ers,  declared  that  "  every  d d  one  of  them 

should  be  hung."  Even  the  humane  and  kindly 
enquiry  of  the  President,  "  If  these  men  should 
return  home  and  become  good  citizens,  who  would 
be  hurt  ? "  failed  to  convince  the  distinguished 
Secretary  that  the  public  good  could  be  promoted 
by  so  doing.  The  President  not  feeling  willing  to 
override  the  judgment  of  his  War  Secretary  in 
this  instance,  further  consideration  of  the  case 
ceased,  and  his  cousin  returned  to  his  home  in 
Illinois  with  his  mission  unaccomplished.* 

Dennis  retained  a  rather  unfavorable  impression 
of  Mr.  Stanton,  whom  he  described  as  a  "  frisky 
little  Yankee  with  a  short  coat-tail."  "  I  asked 
Abe,"  he  said  to  me  once,  "  why  he  didn't  kick  him 
out.  I  told  him  he  was  too  fresh  altogether." 

*  The  subsequent  history  of  these  riot  cases  I  believe  is  that  the 
prisoners  were  returned  to  Illinois  to  be  tried  in  the  State  courts 
there  ;  and  that  by  successive  changes  of  venue  and  continuances 
the  cases  were  finally  worn  out. 


23O  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

Lincoln's  answer  was,  "  If  I  did,  Dennis,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  find  another  man  to  fill  his  place."  The 
President's  cousin  *  sat  in  the  office  during  the  end 
less  interviews  that  take  place  between  the  head  of 
the  nation  and  the  latter's  loyal  subjects.  He  saw 
modesty  and  obscurity  mingling  with  the  arrogance 
of  pride  and  distinction.  One  day  an  attractive 
and  handsomely  dressed  woman  called  to  procure 
the  release  from  prison  of  a  relative  in  whom  she 
professed  the  deepest  interest.  She  was  a  good 
talker,  and  her  winning  ways  seemed  to  be  making 
a  deep  impression  on  the  President.  After  listen 
ing  to  her  story  he  wrote  a  few  lines  on  a  card,  en 
closing  it  in  an  envelope  and  directing  her  to  take 
it  to  the  Secretary  of  War.  Before  sealing  it  he 
showed  it  to  Dennis.  It  read  :  "  This  woman,  dear 
Stanton,  is  a  little  smarter  than  she  looks  to  be." 
She  had,  woman-like,  evidently  overstated  her  case. 
Before  night  another  woman  called,  more  humble 
in  appearance,  more  plainly  clad.  It  was  the  old 
story.  Father  and  son  both  in  the  army,  the  for 
mer  in  prison.  Could  not  the  latter  be  discharged 
from  the  army  and  sent  home  to  help  his  mother  ? 
A  few  strokes  of  the  pen,  a  gentle  nod  of  the  head, 
and  the  little  woman,  her  eyes  filling  with  tears  and 
expressing  a  grateful  acknowledgment  her  tongue 
could  not  utter,  passed  out. 

*  During  this  visit  Mr.  Lincoln  presented  Dennis  with  a  silver 
watch,  which  the  latter  still  retains  as  a  memento  alike  of  the  donor 
and  his  trip  to  Washington. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

BEFORE  passing  to  a  brief  and  condensed  view 
of  the  great  panorama  of  the  war  it  will  interest 
the  reader  and  no  doubt  aid  him  greatly  in 
drawing  the  portrait  of  Lincoln  to  call  up  for  the 
purpose  two  friends  of  his,  whose  testimony  is  not 
only  vivid  and  minute,  but  for  certain  reasons 
unusually  appropriate  and  essential.  The  two  were 
devoted  and  trusted  friends  of  Lincoln ;  and  while 
neither  held  office  under  him,  both  were  offered  and 
both  declined  the  same.  That  of  itself  ought  not 
to  be  considered  as  affecting  or  strengthening 
their  statements,  and  yet  we  sometimes  think  that 
friends  who  are  strong  enough  to  aid  us,  and  yet, 
declining  our  aid,  take  care  of  themselves,  are  brave 
enough  to  tell  us  the  truth.  The  two  friends  of 
Lincoln  here  referred  to  are  Joshua  F.  Speed  and 
Leonard  Swett.  In  quoting  them  I  adhere  strictly 
to  their  written  statements  now  in  my  possession. 
The  former,  under  date  of  December  6,  1866,  says: 
"  Mr.  Lincoln  was  so  unlike  all  the  men  I  had  ever 
known  before  or  seen  or  known  since  that  there 
is  no  one  to  whom  I  can  compare  him.  In  all  his 
habits  of  eating,  sleeping,  reading,  conversation, 
and  study  he  was,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  regularly 
irregular;  that  is,  he  had  no  stated  time  for  eating, 

39  231 


232  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

no  fixed  time  for  going  to  bed,  none  for  getting  up. 
No  course  of  reading  was  chalked  out.  He  read 
law,  history,  philosophy,  or  poetry  ;  Burns,  Byron, 
Milton,  or  Shakespeare  and  the  newspapers,  retain 
ing  them  all  about  as  well  as  an  ordinary  man 
would  any  one  of  them  who  made  only  one  at  a 
time  his  study.  I  once  remarked  to  him  that  his 
mind  was  a  wonder  to  me ;  that  impressions  were 
easily  made  upon  it  and  never  effaced.  '  No/  said 
he,  '  you  are  mistaken ;  I  am  slow  to  learn,  and  slow 
to  forget  that  which  I  have  learned.  My  mind  is 
like  a  piece  of  steel — very  hard  to  scratch  anything 
on  it,  and  almost  impossible  after  you  get  it  there 
to  rub  it  out.'  I  give  this  as  his  own  illustration  of 
the  character  of  his  mental  faculties ;  it  is  as  good 
as  any  I  have  seen  from  anyone. 

"  The  beauty  of  his  character  was  its  entire  sim 
plicity.  He  had  no  affectation  in  anything.  True 
to  nature,  true  to  himself,  he  was  true  to  everybody 
and  everything  around  him.  When  he  was  igno 
rant  on  any  subject,  no  matter  how  simple  it  might 
make  him  appear,  he  was  always  willing  to  acknowl 
edge  it.  His  whole  aim  in  life  was  to  be  true  to 
himself,  and  being  true  to  himself  he  could  be  false 
to  no  one. 

"  He  had  no  vices,  even  as  a  young  man.  Intense 
thought  with  him  was  the  rule  and  not,  as  with 
most  of  us,  the  exception.  He  often  said  that -he 
could  think  better  after  breakfast,  and  better  walk 
ing  than  sitting,  lying,  or  standing.  His  world-wide 
reputation  for  telling  anecdotes  and  telling  them  so 
well  was  in  my  judgment  necessary  to  his  very  ex- 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  233 

istence.  Most  men  who  have  been  great  students, 
such  as  he  was,  in  their  hours  of  idleness  have 
taken  to  the  bottle,  to  cards  or  dice.  He  had  no 
fondness  for  any  of  these.  Hence  he  sought  relax 
ation  in  anecdotes.  So  far  as  I  now  remember  of 
his  study  for  composition,  it  was  to  make  short  sen 
tences  and  a  compact  style.  Illustrative  of  this  it 
might  be  well  to  state  that  he  was  a  great  admirer 
of  the  style  of  John  C.  Calhoun.  I  remember  read 
ing  to  him  one  of  Mr.  Calhoun's  speeches  in  reply 
to  Mr.  Clay  in  the  Senate,  in  which  Mr.  Clay  had 
quoted  precedent.  Mr.  Calhoun  replied  (I  quote 
from  memory)  that  '  to  legislate  upon  precedent  is 
but  to  make  the  error  of  yesterday  the  law  of  to 
day.'  Lincoln  thought  that  was  a  great  truth  and 
grandly  uttered. 

"  Unlike  all  other  men,  there  was  entire  harmony 
between  his  public  and  private  life.  He  must  be 
lieve  he  was  right,  and  that  he  had  truth  and  jus 
tice  with  him,  or  he  was  a  weak  man  ;  but  no  man 
could  be  stronger  if  he  thought  he  was  right. 

"  His  familiar  conversations  were  like  his  speeches 
and  letters  in  this :  that  while  no  set  speech  of  his 
(save  the  Gettysburg  address)  will  be  considered  as 
entirely  artistic  and  complete,  yet,  when  the  gems 
of  American  literature  come  to  be  selected,  as  many 
will  be  culled  from  Lincoln's  speeches  as  from  any 
American  orator.  So  of  his  conversation,  and  so  of 
his  private  correspondence ;  all  abound  in  gems. 

"  My  own  connection  or  relation  with  Mr.  Lincoln 
during  the  war  has  so  often  been  commented  on, 
and  its  extent  so  often  enlarged  upon,  I  feel  impelled 


234  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

to  state  that  during  his  whole  administration  he 
never  requested  me  to  do  anything,  except  in  my 
own  State,  and  never  much  in  that  except  to  advise 
him  as  to  what  measures  and  policy  would  be  most 
conducive  to  the  growth  of  a  healthy  Union  senti 
ment. 

"  My  own  opinion  of  the  history  of  the  Emancipa 
tion  Proclamation  is  that  Mr.  Lincoln  foresaw  the 
necessity  for  it  long  before  he  issued  it.  He  was 
anxious  to  avoid  it,  and  came  to  it  only  when  he 
saw  that  the  measure  would  subtract  from  its  labor, 
and  add  to  our  army  quite  a  number  of  good  fight 
ing  men.  I  have  heard  of  the  charge  of  duplicity 
against  him  by  certain  Western  members  of  Con 
gress.  I  never  believed  the  charge,  because  he  has 
told  me  from  his  own  lips  that  the  charge  was  false. 
I,  who  knew  him  so  well,  could  never  after  that 
credit  the  report.  At  first  I  was  opposed  to  the 
Proclamation,  and  so  told  him.  I  remember  well 
our  conversation  on  the  subject.  He  seemed  to 
treat  it  as  certain  that  I  would  recognize  the  wis 
dom  of  the  act  when  I  should  see  the  harvest  of 
good  which  we  would  ere  long  glean  from  it.  In 
that  conversation  he  alluded  to  an  incident  in  his 
life,  long  passed,  when  he  was  so  much  depressed 
that  he  almost  contemplated  suicide.  At  the  time 
of  his  deep  depression  he  said  to  me  that  he  had 
'  done  nothing  to  make  any  human  being  remember 
that  he  had  lived/  and  that  to  connect  his  name 
with  the  events  transpiring  in  his  day  and  genera 
tion,  and  so  impress  himself  upon  them  as  to  link 
his  name  with  something  that  would  redound  to  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  335 

interest  of  his  fellow  man,  was  what  he  desired  to 
live  for.  He  reminded  me  of  that  conversation,  and 
said  with  earnest  emphasis,  *  I  believe  that  in  this 
measure  [meaning  his  Proclamation]  my  fondest 
hope  will  be  realized.'  Over  twenty  years  had 
passed  between  the  two  conversations. 

4 'The  last  interview  but  one  I  had  with  him  was 
about  ten  days  prior  to  his  last  inauguration.  Con 
gress  was  drawing  to  a  close ;  it  had  been  an  impor 
tant  session ;  much  attention  had  to  be  given  to  the 
important  bills  he  was  signing ;  a  great  war  was 
upon  him  and  the  country  ;  visitors  were  coming 
and  going  to  the  President  with  their  varying  com 
plaints  and  grievances  from  morning  till  night  with 
almost  as  much  regularity  as  the  ebb  and  flow  of 
the  tide ;  and  he  was  worn  down  in  health  and 
spirits.  On  this  occasion  I  was  sent  for,  to  come 
and  see  him.  Instructions  were  given  that  when  I 
came  I  should  be  admitted.  When  I  entered  his 
office  it  was  quite  full,  and  many  more — among 
them  not  a  few  Senators  and  members  of  Congress 
— still  waiting.  As  soon  as  I  was  fairly  inside,  the 
President  remarked  that  he  desired  to  see  me  as 
soon  as  he  was  through  giving  audiences,  and  that 
if  I  had  nothing  to  do  I  could  take  the  papers  and 
amuse  myself  in  that  or  any  other  way  I  saw  fit  till 
he  was  ready.  In  the  room,  when  I  entered,  I  ob 
served  sitting  near  the  fireplace,  dressed  in  humble 
attire,  two  ladies  modestly  waiting  their  turn.  One 
after  another  of  the  visitors  came  and  went,  each 
bent  on  his  own  particular  errand,  some  satisfied  and 
others  evidently  displeased  at  the  result  of  their 


236  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

mission.  The  hour  had  arrived  to  close  the  door 
against  all  further  callers.  No  one  was  left  in  the 
room  now  except  the  President,  the  two  ladies,  and 
me.  With  a  rather  peevish  and  fretful  air  he  turned 
to  them  and  said,  'Well,  ladies,  what  can  I  do  for 
you?'  They  both  commenced  to  speak  at  once. 
From  what  they  said  he  soon  learned  that  one  was 
the  wife  and  the  other  the  mother  of  two  men 
imprisoned  for  resisting  the  draft  in  western  Penn 
sylvania.  '  Stop/  said  he,  '  don't  say  any  more. 
Give  me  your  petition.'  The  old  lady  responded, 
'  Mr.  Lincoln,  we've  got  no  petition ;  we  couldn't 
write  one  and  had  no  money  to  pay  for  writing  one, 
and  I  thought  best  to  come  and  see  you.'  'Oh,' 
said  he,  '  I  understand  your  cases.'  He  rang  his  bell 
and  ordered  one  of  the  messengers  to  tell  General 
Dana  to  bring  him  the  names  of  all  the  men  in 
prison  for  resisting  the  draft  in  western  Pennsyl 
vania.  The  General  soon  came  with  the  list.  He 
enquired  if  there  was  any  difference  in  the  charges 
or  degrees  of  guilt.  The  General  replied  that  he 
knew  of  none.  *  Well,  then,'  said  he,  '  these  fellows 
have  suffered  long  enough,  and  I  have  thought  so 
for  some  time,  and  now  that  my  mind  is  on  the  sub 
ject  I  believe  I  will  turn  out  the  whole  flock.  So, 
draw  up  the  order,  General,  and  I  will  sign  it.'  It 
was  done  and  the  General  left  the  room.  Turning 
to  the  women  he  said,  '  Now,  ladies,  you  can  go.' 
The  younger  of  the  two  ran  forward  and  was  in 
the  act  of  kneeling  in  thankfulness.  '  Get  up,'  he 
said;  '  don't  kneel  to  me,  but  thank  God  and  go.' 
The  old  lady  now  came  forward  with  tears  in  her 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  237 

eyes  to  express  her  gratitude.  '  Good-bye,  Mr.  Lin 
coln,'  said  she  ; '  I  shall  probably  never  see  you  again 
till  we  meet  in  heaven.'  These  were  her  exact 
words.  She  had  the  President's  hand  in  hers,  and 
he  was  deeply  moved.  He  instantly  took  her  right 
hand  in  both  of  his  and,  following  her  to  the  door, 
said,  *  I  am  afraid  with  all  my  troubles  I  shall 
never  get  to  the  resting-place  you  speak  of;  but 
if  I  do  I  am  sure  I  shall  find  you.  That  you  wish 
me  to  get  there  is,  I  believe,  the  best  wish  you 
could  make  for  me.  Good-bye.' 

"  We  were  now  alone.  I  said  to  him,  '  Lincoln, 
with  my  knowledge  of  your  nervous  sensibility,  it  is 
a  wonder  that  such  scenes  as  this  don't  kill  you.' 
He  thought  for  a  moment  and  then  answered  in  a 
languid  voice,  'Yes,  you  are  to  a  certain  degree 
right.  I  ought  not  to  undergo  what  I  so  often  do. 
I  am  very  unwell  now ;  my  feet  and  hands  of  late 
seem  to  be  always  cold,  and  I  ought  perhaps  to  be 
in  bed ;  but  things  of  the  sort  you  have  just  seen 
don't  hurt  me,  for,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  that  scene 
is  the  only  thing  to-day  that  has  made  me  forget 
my  condition  or  given  me  any  pleasure.  I  have,  in 
that  order,  made  two  people  happy  and  alleviated 
the  distress  of  many  a  poor  soul  whom  I  never 
expect  to  see.  That  old  lady,'  he  continued,  *  was 
no  counterfeit.  The  mother  spoke  out  in  all  the  feat 
ures  of  her  face.  It  is  more  than  one  can  often  say 
that  in  doing  right  one  has  made  two  people  happy 
in  one  day.  Speed,  die  when  I  may,  I  want  it  said 
of  me  by  those  who  know  me  best,  that  I  always 
plucked  a  thistle  and  planted  a  flower  when  I 


238  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

thought  a  flower  would  grow/     What  a  fitting  sen 
timent  !     What  a  glorious  recollection  !  " 

The  recollections  of  Lincoln  by  Mr.  Swett  are  in 
the  form  of  a  letter  dated  January  17,  1866.  There 
is  so  much  of  what  I  know  to  be  true  in  it,  and  it  is 
so  graphically  told,  that  although  there  maybe  some 
repetition  of  what  has  already  been  touched  upon 
in  the  preceding  chapters,  still  I  believe  that  the 
portrait  of  Lincoln  will  be  made  all  the  more  life 
like  by  inserting  the  letter  without  abridgment. 

"  CHICAGO,  ILL.,  Jan.  17,  1866. 

"WM.  H.  HERNDON,  ESQ. 
"  Springfield,  111. 

"  Dear  Sir:  I  received  your  letter  to  day,  asking 
me  to  write  you  Friday.  Fearing  if  I  delay,  you  will 
not  get  it  in  time,  I  will  give  you  such  hasty  thoughts 
as  may  occur  to  me  to-night.  I  have  mislaid  your 
second  lecture,  so  that  I  have  not  read  it  at  all,  and 
have  not  read  your  first  one  since  about  the  time  it 
was  published.  What  I  shall  say,  therefore,  will  be 
based  upon  my  own  ideas  rather  than  a  review  of 
the  lecture. 

"  Lincoln's  whole  life  was  a  calculation  of  the  law 
of  forces  and  ultimate  results.  The  whole  world 
to  him  was  a  question  of  cause  and  effect.  He 
believed  the  results  to  which  certain  causes  tended ; 
he  did  not  believe  that  those  results  could  be  mate 
rially  hastened  or  impeded.  His  whole  political 
history,  especially  since  the  agitation  of  the  slavery 
question,  has  been  based  upon  this  theory.  He 
believed  from  the  first,  I  think,  that  the  agitation 
of  slavery  would  produce  its  overthrow,  and  he 
acted  upon  the  result  as  though  it  was  present  from 
the  beginning.  His  tactics  were  to  get  himself  in 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 


239 


the  right  place  and  remain  there  still,  until  events 
would  find  him  in  that  place.  This  course  of  action 
led  him  to  say  and  do  things  which  could  not  be 
understood  when  considered  in  reference  to  the 
immediate  surroundings  in  which  they  were  done 
or  said.  You  will  remember,  in  his  campaign 
against  Douglas  in  1858,  the  first  ten  lines  of  the 
first  speech  he  made  defeated  him.  The  sentiment 
of  the  *  house  divided  against  itself '  seemed  wholly 
inappropriate.  It  was  a  speech  made  at  the  com 
mencement  of  a  campaign,  and  apparently  made  for 
the  campaign.  Viewing  it  in  this  light  alone,  noth 
ing  could  have  been  more  unfortunate  or  inappro 
priate.  It  was  saying  just  the  wrong  thing;  yet 
he  saw  it  was  an  abstract  truth,  and  standing  by 
the  speech  would  ultimately  find  him  in  the  right 
place.  I  was  inclined  at  the  time  to  believe  these 
words  were  hastily  and  inconsiderately  uttered,  but 
subsequent  facts  have  convinced  me  they  were 
deliberate  and  had  been  matured.  Judge  T.  L. 
Dickey  says,  that  at  Bloomington,  at  the  first 
Republican  Convention  in  1856,  he  uttered  the  same 
sentences  in  a  speech  delivered  there,  and  that  after 
the  meeting  was  over,  he  (Dickey)  called  his  atten 
tion  to  these  remarks. 

"  Lincoln  justified  himself  in  making  them  by  stat 
ing  they,  were  true ;  but  finally,  at  Dickey's  urgent 
request,  he  promised  that  for  his  sake,  or  upon  his 
advice,  he  would  not  repeat  them.  In  the  summer 
of  1859,  when  he  was  dining  with  a  party  of  his 
intimate  friends  at  Bloomington,  the  subject  of  his 
Springfield  speech  was  discussed.  We  all  insisted 
it  was  a  great  mistake,  but  he  justified  himself,  and 
finally  said,  '  Well,  gentlemen,  you  may  think  that 
speech  was  a  mistake,  but  I  never  have  believed  it 
was,  and  you  will  see  the  day  when  you  will  con 
sider  it  was  the  wisest  thing  I  ever  said.' 

"  He   never   believed  in   political   combinations, 


240  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

and  consequently,  whether  an  individual  man  or 
class  of  men  supported  or  opposed  him,  never  made 
any  difference  in  his  feelings,  or  his  opinions  of  his 
own  success.  If  he  was  elected,  he  seemed  to 
believe  that  no  person  or  class  of  persons  could 
ever  have  defeated  him,  and  if  defeated,  he  believed 
nothing  could  ever  have  elected  him.  Hence,  when 
he  was  a  candidate,  he  never  wanted  anything  done 
for  him  in  the  line  of  political  combination  or  man 
agement.  He  seemed  to  want  to  let  the  whole 
subject  alone,  and  for  everybody  else  to  do  the 
same.  I  remember,  after  the  Chicago  Convention, 
when  a  great  portion  of  the  East  were  known  to  be 
dissatisfied  at  his  nomination,  when  fierce  conflicts 
were  going  on  in  New  York  and  Pennsylvania,  and 
when  great  exertions  seemed  requisite  to  harmonize 
and  mould  in  concert  the  action  of  our  friends, 
Lincoln  always  seemed  to  oppose  all  efforts  made 
in  the  direction  of  uniting  the  party.  I  arranged 
with  Mr.  Thurlow  Weed  after  the  Chicago  Conven 
tion  to  meet  him  at  Springfield.  I  was  present  at 
the  interview,  but  Lincoln  said  nothing.  It  was 
proposed  that  Judge  Davis  should  go  to  New  York 
and  Pennsylvania  to  survey  the  field  and  see  what 
was  necessary  to  be  done.  Lincoln  consented,  but 
it  was  always  my  opinion  that  he  consented  reluc 
tantly. 

"  He  saw  that  the  pressure  of  a  campaign  was 
the  external  force  coercing  the  party  into  unity. 
If  it  failed  to  produce  that  result,  he  believed  any 
individual  effort  would  also  fail.  If  the  desired 
result  followed,  he  considered  it  attributable  to  the 
great  cause,  and  not  aided  by  the  lesser  ones.  He 
sat  down  in  his  chair  in  Springfield  and  made  him 
self  the  Mecca  to  which  all  politicians  made  pilgrim 
ages.  He  told  them  all  a  story,  said  nothing,  and 
sent  them  away.  All  his  efforts  to  procure  a 
second  nomination  were  in  the  same  direction.  I 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  241 

believe  he  earnestly  desired  that  nomination.  He 
was  much  more  eager  for  it  than  he  was  for  the 
first,  and  yet  from  the  beginning  he  discouraged  all 
efforts  on  the  part  of  his  friends  to  obtain  it.  From 
the  middle  of  his  first  term  all  his  adversaries  were 
busily  at  work  for  themselves.  Chase  had  three  or 
four  secret  societies  and  an  immense  patronage 
extending  all  over  the  country.  Fremont  was 
constantly  at  work,  yet  Lincoln  would  never  do 
anything  either  to  hinder  them  or  to  help  himself. 

"  He  was  considered  too  conservative,  and  his 
adversaries  were  trying  to  outstrip  him  in  satisfying 
the  radical  element.  I  had  a  conversation  with  him 
upon  this  subject  in  October,  1863,  and  tried  to 
induce  him  to  recommend  in  his  annual  message 
a  constitutional  amendment  abolishing  slavery.  I 
told  him  I  was  not  very  radical,  but  I  believed  the 
result  of  the  war  would  be  the  extermination  of 
slavery ;  that  Congress  would  pass  the  amendment 
making  the  slave  free,  and  that  it  was  proper  at 
that  time  to  be  done.  I  told  him  also,  if  he  took 
that  stand,  it  was  an  outside  position,  and  no  one 
could  maintain  himself  upon  any  measure  more 
radical,  and  if  he  failed  to  take  the  position,  his 
rivals  would.  Turning  to  me  suddenly  he  said,  *  Is 
not  the  question  of  emancipation  doing  well  enough 
now  ? '  I  replied  it  was.  *  Well/  said  he,  '  I  have 
never  done  an  official  act  with  a  view  to  .promote 
my  own  personal  aggrandizement,  and  I  don't  like 
to  begin  now.  I  can  see  that  emancipation  is  com 
ing  ;  whoever  can  wait  for  it  will  see  it ;  whoever 
stands  in  its  way  will  be  run  over  by  it.' 

"  His  rivals  were  using  money  profusely  ;  jour 
nals  and  influences  were  being  subsidized  against 
him.  I  accidentally  learned  that  a  Washington 
newspaper,  through  a  purchase  of  the  establishment, 
was  to  be  turned  against  him,  and  consulted  him 
about  taking  steps  to  prevent  it.  The  only  thing  I 


242  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

could  get  him  to  say  was  that  he  would  regret  to 
see  the  paper  turned  against  him.  Whatever  was 
done  had  to  be  done  without  his  knowledge.  Mr. 
Bennett  of  the  Herald,  with  his  paper,  you  know,  is 
a  power.  The  old  gentleman  wanted  to  be  noticed 
by  Lincoln,  and  he  wanted  to  support  him.  A 
friend  of  his,  who  was  certainly  in  his  secrets,  came 
to  Washington  and  intimated  if  Lincoln  would 
invite  Bennett  to  come  over  and  chat  with  him,  his 
paper  would  be  all  right.  Mr.  Bennett  wanted 
nothing,  he  simply  wanted  to  be  noticed.  Lincoln 
in  talking  about  it  said,  '  I  understand  it ;  Bennett 
has  made  a  great  deal  of  money,  some  say  not  very 
properly,  now  he  wants  me  to  make  him  respect 
able.  I  have  never  invited  Mr.  Bryant  or  Mr. 
Greeley  here  ;  I  shall  not,  therefore,  especially  invite 
Mr.  Bennett/  All  Lincoln  would  say  was,  that  he 
was  receiving  everybody,  and  he  should  receive 
Mr.  Bennett  if  he  came. 

"  Notwithstanding  his  entire  inaction,  he  never 
for  a  moment  doubted  his  second  nomination. 
One  time  in  his  room  discussing  with  him  who  his 
real  friends  were,  he  told  me,  if  I  would  not  show 
it,  he  would  make  a  list  of  how  the  Senate  stood. 
When  he  got  through,  I  pointed  out  some  five  or 
six,  and  I  told  him  I  knew  he  was  mistaken  about 
them.  Said  he,  '  You  may  think  so,  but  you  keep 
that  until  the  convention  and  tell  me  then  whether 
I  was  right.'  He  was  right  to  a  man.  He  kept  a 
kind  of  account  book  of  how  things  were  progress 
ing,  for  three  or  four  months,  and  whenever  I  would 
get  nervous  and  think  things  were  going  wrong,  he 
would  get  out  his  estimates  and  show  how  every 
thing  on  the  great  scale  of  action,  such  as  the  reso 
lutions  of  legislatures,  the  instructions  of  delegates, 
and  things  of  that  character,  were  going  exactly  as 
he  expected.  These  facts,  with  many  others  of  a 
kindred  nature,  have  convinced  me  that  he  managed 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  243 

his  politics  upon  a  plan  entirely  different  from  any 
other  man  the  country  has  ever  produced. 

"  He  managed  his  campaigns  by  ignoring  men 
and  by  ignoring  all  small  causes,  but  by  closely 
calculating  the  tendencies  of  events  and  the  great 
forces  which  were  producing  logical  results. 

"  In  his  conduct  of  the  war  he  acted  upon  the 
theory  that  but  one  thing  was  necessary,  and  that 
was  a  united  North.  He  had  all  shades  of  senti 
ments  and  opinions  to  deal  with,  and  the  considera 
tion  was  always  presented  to  his  mind,  how  can  I 
hold  these  discordant  elements  together? 

"  It  was  here  that  he  located  his  own  greatness 
as  a  President.  One  time,  about  the  middle  of  the 
war,  I  left  his  house  about  eleven  o'clock  at  night, 
at  the  Soldiers'  Home.  We  had  been  discussing 
the  discords  in  the  country,  and  particularly  the 
States  of  Missouri  and  Kentucky.  As  we  separated 
at  the  door  he  said,  *  I  may  not  have  made  as  great 
a  President  as  some  other  men,  but  I  believe  I 
have  kept  these  discordant  elements  together  as 
well  as  anyone  could.'  Hence,  in  dealing  with  men 
he  was  a  trimmer,  and  such  a  trimmer  the  world 
has  never  seen.  Halifax,  who  was  great  in  his  day 
as  a  trimmer,  would  blush  by  the  side  of  Lincoln  ; 
yet  Lincoln  never  trimmed  in  principles,  it  was 
only  in  his  conduct  with  men.  He  used  the  pat 
ronage  of  his  office  to  feed  the  hunger  of  these 
various  factions.  Weed  always  declared  that  he 
kept  a  regular  account-book  of  his  appointments  in 
New  York,  dividing  his  various  favors  so  as  to  give 
each  faction  more  than  it  could  get  from  any  other 
source,  yet  never  enough  to  satisfy  its  appetite. 

"  They  all  had  access  to  him,  they  all  received 
favors  from  him,  and  they  all  complained  of  ill 
treatment ;  but  while  unsatisfied,  they  all  had  *  large 
expectations,'  and  saw  in  .him  the  chance  of  obtain 
ing  more  than  from  anyone  else  whom  they  could 


244  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

be  sure  of  getting  in  his  place.  He  used  every 
force  to  the  best  possible  advantage.  He  never 
wasted  anything,  and  would  always  give  more  to 
his  enemies  than  he  would  to  his  friends ;  and  the 
reason  was,  because  he  never  had  anything  to  spare, 
and  in  the  close  calculation  of  attaching  the  factions 
to  him,  he  counted  upon  the  abstract  affection  of 
his  friends  as  an  element  to  be  offset  against  some 
gift  with  which  he  must  appease  his  enemies. 
Hence,  there  was  always  some  truth  in  the  charge 
of  his  friends  that  he  failed  to  reciprocate  their 
devotion  with  his  favors.  The  reason  was,  that  he 
had  only  just  so  much  to  give  away — '  He  always 
had  more  horses  than  oats.' 

"  An  adhesion  of  all  forces  was  indispensable  to 
his  success  and  the  success  of  the  country ;  hence 
he  husbanded  his  means  with  the  greatest  nicety  of 
calculation.  Adhesion  was  what  he  wanted ;  if  he 
got  it  gratuitously  he  never  wasted  his  substance 
paying  for  it. 

''His  love  of  the  ludicrous  was  not  the  least 
peculiar  of  his  characteristics.  His  love  of  fun 
made  him  overlook  everything  else  but  the  point  of 
the  joke  sought  after.  If  he  told  a  good  story  that 
was  refined  and  had  a  sharp  point,  he  did  not  like  it 
any  the  better  because  it  was  refined.  If  it  was  out 
rageously  vulgar,  he  never  seemed  to  see  that  part 
of  it,  if  it  had  the  sharp  ring  of  wit ;  nothing  ever 
reached  him  but  the  wit.  Almost  any  man  that 
will  tell  a  very  vulgar  story,  has,  in  a  degree,  a  vul 
gar  mind ;  but  it  was  not  so  with  him ;  with  all  his 
purity  of  character  and  exalted  morality  and  sensi 
bility,  which  no  man  can  doubt,  when  hunting  for 
wit  he  had  no  ability  to  discriminate  between  the 
vulgar  and  the  refined  substances  from  which  he 
extracted  it.  It  was  the  wit  he  was  after,  the  pure 
jewel,  and  he  would  pick  it  up  out  of  the  mud  or 
dirt  just  as  readily  as  he  would  from  a  parlor  table. 


7 HE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  245 

"  He  had  great  kindness  of  heart.  His  mind 
was  full  of  tender  sensibilities,  and  he  was  extreme- 
ly  humane,  yet  while  these  attributes  were  fully 
developed  in  his  character,  and,  unless  intercepted 
by  his  judgment,  controlled  him,  they  never  did 
control  him  contrary  to  his  judgment.  He  would 
strain  a  point  to  be  kind,  but  he  never  strained  it 
to  breaking.  Most  men  of  much  kindly  feeling 
are  controlled  by  this  sentiment  against  their  judg 
ment,  or  rather  that  sentiment  beclouds  their  judg 
ment.  It  was  never  so  with  him;  he  would  be  just 
as  kind  and  generous  as  his  judgment  would  let 
him  be — no  more.  If  he  ever  deviated  from  this 
rule,  it  was  to  save  life.  He  would  sometimes,  I 
think,  do  things  he  knew  to  be  impolitic  and  wrong 
to  save  some  poor  fellow's  neck.  I  remember  one 
day  being  in  his  room  when  he  was  sitting  at  his 
table  with  a  large  pile  of  papers  before  him,  and 
after  a  pleasant  talk  he  turned  quite  abruptly  and 
said,  '  Get  out  of  the  way,  Swett ;  to-morrow  is 
butcher-day,  and  I  must  go  through  these  papers 
and  see  if  I  cannot  find  some  excuse  to  let  these 
poor  fellows  off.'  The  pile  of  papers  he  had  were 
the  records  of  courts  martial  of  men  who  on  the 
following  day  were  to  be  shot.  He  was  not  exam 
ining  the  records  to  see  whether  the  evidence  sus 
tained  the  findings;  he  was  purposely  in  search  of 
occasions  to  evade  the  law,  in  favor  of  life. 

"  Some  of  Lincoln's  friends  have  insisted  that  he 
lacked  the  strong  attributes  of  personal  affection 
which  he  ought  to  have  exhibited  ;  but  I  think  this 
is  a  mistake.  Lincoln  had  too  much  justice  to  run  a 
great  government  for  a  few  favors ;  and  the  com 
plaints  against  him  in  this  regard,  when  properly 
digested,  seem  to  amount  to  this  and  no  more, 
that  he  would  not  abuse  the  privileges  of  his  situa« 
tion. 

"  He  was  certainly  a  very  poor  hater.      He  never 


246  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

judged  men  by  his  like  or  dislike  for  them.  If  any 
given  act  was  to  be  performed,  he  could  understand 
that  his  enemy  could  do  it  just  as  well  as  anyone. 
If  a  man  had  maligned  him  or  been  guilty  of  per 
sonal  ill-treatment,  and  was  the  fittest  man  for  the 
place,  he  would  give  him  that  place  just  as  soon  as 
he  would  give  it  to  a  friend. 

"  I  do  not  think  he  ever  removed  a  man  because 
he  was  his  enemy  or  because  he  disliked  him. 

"  The  great  secret  of  his  power  as  an  orator,  in 
my  judgment,  lay  in  the  clearness  and  perspicuity 
of  his  statements.  When  Mr.  Lincoln  had  stated  a 
case  it  was  always  more  than  half  argued  and  the 
point  more  than  half  won.  It  is  said  that  some  one 
of  the  crowned  heads  of  Europe  proposed  to  marry 
when  he  had  a  wife  living.  A  gentleman,  hearing 
of  this  proposition,  replied,  how  could  he ?  'Oh,' 
replied  his  friend,  '  he  could  marry  and  then  he  could 
get  Mr.  Gladstone  to  make  an  explanation  about  it.' 
This  was  said  to  illustrate  the  convincing  power  of 
Mr.  Gladstone's  statement. 

11  Mr.  Lincoln  had  this  power  greater  than  any 
man  I  have  ever  known.  The  first  impression  he 
generally  conveyed  was,  that  he  had  stated  the 
case  of  his  adversary  better  and  more  forcibly  than 
his  opponent  could  state  it  himself.  He  then 
answered  that  statement  of  facts  fairly  and  fully, 
never  passing  by  or  skipping  over  a  bad  point. 

"  When  this  was  done  he  presented  his  own  case. 
There  was  a  feeling,  when  he  argued  a  case,  in  the 
mind  of  any  man  who  listened  to  it,  that  nothing 
had  been  passed  over ;  yet  if  he  could  not  answer 
the  objections  he  argued,  in  his  own  mind,  and  him 
self  arrive  at  the  conclusion  to  which  he  was  lead 
ing  others,  he  had  very  little  power  of  argumenta 
tion.  The  force  of  his  logic  was  in  conveying  to 
the  minds  of  others  the  same  clear  and  thorough 
analysis  he  had  in  his  own,  and  if  his  own  mind 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  247 

failed  to  be  satisfied,  he  had  little  power  to  satisfy 
anybody  else.  He  never  made  a  sophistical  argu 
ment  in  his  life,  and  never  could  make  one.  I 
think  he  was  of  less  real  aid  in  trying  a  thoroughly 
bad  case  than  any  man  I  was  ever  associated  with. 
If  he  could  not  grasp  the  whole  case  and  believe  in 
it,  he  was  never  inclined  to  touch  it. 

"  From  the  commencement  of  his  life  to  its 
close,  I  have  sometimes  doubted  whether  he  ever 
asked  anybody's  advice  about  anything.  He  would 
listen  to  everybody  ;  he  would  hear  everybody ;  but 
he  rarely,  if  ever,  asked  for  opinions.  I  never  knew 
him  in  trying  a  case  to  ask  the  advice  of  any  lawyer 
he  was  associated  with. 

"As  a  politician  and  as  President,  he  arrived  at 
all  his  conclusions  from  his  own  reflections,  and 
when  his  opinion  was  once  formed,  he  never 
doubted  but  what  it  was  right. 

"  One  great  public  mistake  of  his  character,  as 
generally  received  and  acquiesced  in,  is  that  he  is 
considered  by  the  people  of  this  country  as  a  frank, 
guileless,  and  unsophisticated  man.  There  never 
was  a  greater  mistake.  Beneath  a  smooth  surface 
of  candor  and  apparent  declaration  of  all  his 
thoughts  and  feelings,  he  exercised  the  most  exalted 
tact  and  the  wisest  discrimination.  He  handled 
and  moved  men  remotely  as  we  do  pieces  upon 
a  chess-board.  He  retained  through  life  all  the 
friends  he  ever  had,  and  he  made  the  wrath  of  his 
enemies  to  praise  him.  This  was  not  by  cunning 
or  intrigue,  in  the  low  acceptation  of  the  term,  but 
by  far-seeing  reason  and  discernment.  He  always 
told  enough  only  of  his  plans  and  purposes  to 
induce  the  belief  that  he  had  communicated  all, 
yet  he  reserved  enough  to  have  communicated 
nothing.  He  told  all  that  was  unimportant  with  a 
gushing  frankness,  yet  no  man  ever  kept  his  real 
40 


248  WE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

purposes   closer,  or   penetrated   the  future   further 
with  his  deep  designs. 

"  You  ask  me  whether  he  changed  his  religious 
opinions  towards  the  close  of  his  life.  I  think  not. 
As  he  became  involved  in  matters  of  the  greatest 
importance,  full  of  great  responsibility  and  great 
doubt,  a  feeling  of  religious  reverence,  a  belief  in 
God  and  his  justice  and  overruling  power  increased 
with  him.  He  was  always  full  of  natural  religion  ; 
he  believed  in  God  as  much  as  the  most  approved 
Church  member,  yet  he  judged  of  Him  by  the  same 
system  of  generalization  as  he  judged  everything 
else.  He  had  very  little  faith  in  ceremonials  or 
forms.  In  fact  he  cared  nothing  for  the  form  of 
anything.  But  his  heart  was  full  of  natural  and 
cultivated  religion.  He  believed  in  the  great  laws 
of  truth,  and  the  rigid  discharge  of  duty,  his 
accountability  to  God,  the  ultimate  triumph  of  the 
right  and  the  overthrow  of  wrong.  If  his  religion 
were  to  be  judged  by  the  lines  and  rules  of  Church 
creeds  he  would  fall  far  short  of  the  standard ;  but 
if  by  the  higher  rule  of  purity  of  conduct,  of  hon 
esty  of  motive,  of  unyielding  fidelity  to  the  right, 
and  acknowledging  God  as  the  supreme  ruler,  then 
he  filled  all  the  requirements  of  true  devotion,  and 
his  whole  life  was  a  life  of  love  to  God,  and  love 
of  his  neighbor  as  of  himself. 

"  Yours  truly, 

"  LEONARD  SWETT." 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  outlines  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Presidential  career 
are  alone  sufficient  to  fill  a  volume,  and  his  history 
after  he  had  been  sworn  into  office  by  Chief  Justice 
Taney  is  so  much  a  history  of  the  entire  country, 
and  has  been  so  admirably  and  thoroughly  told  by 
others,  that  I  apprehend  I  can  omit  many  of  the 
details  and  still  not  impair  the  portrait  I  have  been 
endeavoring  to  draw  in  the  mind  of  the  reader.  The 
rapid  shifting  of  scenes  in  the  drama  of  secession,  the 
disclosure  of  rebellious  plots  and  conspiracies,  the 
threats  of  Southern  orators  and  newspapers,  all  cul 
minating  in  the  attack  on  Fort  Sumter,  brought 
the  newly  installed  President  face  to  face  with  the 
stern  and  grave  realities  of  a  civil  war.*  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  military  knowledge  had  been  acquired  in  the 
famous  campaign  against  the  Indian  Chief  Black 
Hawk  on  the  frontier  in  1832,  the  thrilling  details 

*  "  Lincoln  then  told  me  of  his  last  interview  with  Douglas.  '  One 
day  Douglas  came  rushing  in/  he  related, '  and  said  he  had  just  got  a 
telegraph  despatch  from  some  friends  in  Illinois  urging  him  to  come 
out  and  help  set  things  right  in  Egypt,  and  that  he  would  go,  or  stay 
in  Washington,  just  where  I  thought  he  could  do  the  most  good. 
I  told  him  to  do  as  he  chose,  but  that  he  could  probably  do  best  in 
Illinois.  Upon  that  he  shook  hands  with  me  and  hurried  away  to 
catch  the  next  train.  I  never  saw  him  again/  " — Henry  C.  Whitney, 
MS.  letter,  November  13,  1866. 

249 


250  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

of  which  he  had  already  given  the  country  in  a  Con 
gressional  stump-speech ;  and  to  this  store  of  expe 
rience  he  had  made  little  if  any  addition.  It  was 
therefore  generally  conceded  that  in  grappling  with 
the  realities  of  the  problem  which  now  confronted 
both  himself  and  the  country  he  would  be  wholly 
dependent  on  those  who  had  made  the  profession 
of  arms  a  life-work.  Those  who  held  such  hastily 
conceived  notions  of  Mr.  Lincoln  were  evidently 
misled  by  his  well-known  and  freely  advertised 
Democratic  manners.  Anybody  had  a  right,  it  was 
supposed,  to  advise  him  of  his  duty ;  and  he  was  so 
conscious  of  his  shortcomings  as  a  military  Presi 
dent  that  the  army  officers  and  Cabinet  would  run 
the  Government  and  conduct  the  war.  That  was  the 
popular  idea.  Little  did  the  press,  or  people,  or 
politicians  then  know  that  the  country  lawyer  who 
occupied  the  executive  chair  was  the  most  self- 
reliant  man  who  ever'  sat  in  it,  and  that  when  the 
crisis  came  his  rivals  in  the  Cabinet,  and  the  people 
everywhere,  would  learn  that  he  and  he  alone  would 
be  master  of  the  situation. 

It  is  doubtless  true  that  for  a  long  time  after  his 
entry  into  office  he  did  not  assert  himself ;  that  is, 
not  realizing  the  gigantic  scale  upon  which  the  war 
was  destined  to  be  fought,  he  may  have  permitted 
the  idea  to  go  forth  that  being  unused  to  the  com 
mand  of  armies  he  would  place  himself  entirely  in 
the  hands  of  those  who  were.*  The  Secretary  of 

*  "  I  was  in  Washington  in  the  Indian  service  for  a  few  days  be 
fore  August,  i86i,and  I  merely  said  to  Lincoln  one  day,  '  Everything 
is  drifting  into  the  war,  and  I  guess  you  will  have  to  put  me  in  the 


EDWARD  D.  BAKER. 


STEPHEN  A.  DOUGLAS. 


DAVID  DAVIS. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  25 1 

State,  whose  ten  years  in  the  Senate  had  acquainted 
him  with  our  relations  to  foreign  powers,  may  have 
been  lulled  into  the  innocent  belief  that  the  Execu 
tive  would  have  no  fixed  or  definite  views  on  in 
ternational  questions.  So  also  of  the  other  Cabinet 
officers ;  but  alas  for  their  fancied  security !  It 
was  the  old  story  of  the  sleeping  lion.  Old  politi 
cians,  eying  him  with  some  distrust  and  want  of  con 
fidence,  prepared  themselves  to  control  his  adminis 
tration,  not  only  as  a  matter  of  right,  but  believing 
that  he  would  be  compelled  to  rely  upon  them  for 
support.  A  brief  experience  taught  them  he  was 
not  the  man  they  bargained  for. 

Next  in  importance  to  the  attack  on  Fort  Sum- 
ter,  from  a  military  standpoint,  was  the  battle  of 
Bull  Run.  How  the  President  viewed  it  is  best 
illustrated  by  an  incident  furnished  by  an  old  friend  * 
who  was  an  associate  of  his  in  the  Legislature  of 
Illinois,  and  who  was  in  Washington  when  the  en 
gagement  took  place.  "  The  night  after  the  battle/' 
he  relates,  "accompanied  by  two  Wisconsin  Con 
gressmen,  I  called  at  the  White  House  to  get  the 
news  from  Manassas,  as  it  was  then  called,  having 
failed  in  obtaining  any  information  at  Seward's 
office  and  elsewhere.  Stragglers  were  coming  with 
all  sorts  of  wild  rumors,  but  nothing  more  definite 
than  that  there  had  been  a  great  engagement ;  and 

army.'     He  looked  up  from  his  work  and  said,  good-humoredly,  '  I'm 
making  generals  now.     In  a  few  days  I  will  be  making  quartermas 
ters,  and  then  I'll  fix  you.' "— H.  C.  Whitney,  MS.  letter,  June  13, 
1866. 
*  Robert  L.  Wilson,  MS.,  Feb.  10,  1866. 


252  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

the  bearer  of  each  report  had  barely  escaped  with 
his  life.  Messengers  bearing  despatches  to  the 
President  and  Secretary  of  War  were  constantly 
arriving,  but  outsiders  could  gather  nothing  worthy 
of  belief.  Having  learned  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  at 
the  War  Department  we  started  thither,  but  found 
the  building  surrounded  by  a  great  crowd,  all  as 
much  in  the  dark  as  we.  Removing  a  short  dis 
tance  away  we  sat  down  to  rest.  Presently  Mr. 
Lincoln  and  Mr.  Nicolay,  his  private  secretary,  came 
along,  headed  for  the  White  House.  It  was  pro 
posed  by  my  companions  that  as  I  was  acquainted 
with  the  President  I  should  join  him  and  ask  for 
the  news.  I  did  so,  but  he  said  that  he  had  already 
told  more  than  under  the  rules  of  the  War  Depart 
ment  he  had  any  right  to,  and  that,  although  he  could 
see  no  harm  in  it,  the  Secretary  of  War  had  forbidden 
his  imparting  information  to  persons  not  in  the  mili 
tary  service.  '  These  war  fellows,'  he  said,  complain- 
ingly,  '  are  very  strict  with  me,  and  I  regret  that  I 
am  prevented  from  telling  you  anything ;  but  I 
must  obey  them,  I  suppose,  until  I  get  the  hang  of 
things.'  *  But,  Mr.  President,'  I  insisted,  '  if  you  can 
not  tell  me  the  news,  you  can  at  least  indicate  its 
nature,  that  is,  whether  good  or  bad.'  The  sugges 
tion  struck  him  favorably.  Grasping  my  arm  he 
leaned  over,  and  placing  his  face  near  my  ear,  said,  in 

a  shrill  but  subdued  voice,  *  It's  d d  bad.'     It  was 

the  first  time  I  had  ever  heard  him  use  profane  lan 
guage,  if  indeed  it  was  profane  in  that  connection  ; 
but  later,  when  the  painful  details  of  the  fight  came 
in,  I  realized  that,  taking  into  consideration  the  time 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  253 

and  the  circumstances,  no  other  term  would   have 
contained  a  truer  qualification  of  the  word  '  bad.'  ' 

"  About  one  week  after  the  battle  of  Bull  Run," 
relates  another  old  friend — Whitney — from  Illinois, 
"  I  made  a  call  on  Mr.  Lincoln,  having  no  business 
except  to  give  him  some  presents  which  the  nuns  at 
the  Osage  Mission  school  in  Kansas  had  sent  to  him 
through  me.  A  Cabinet  meeting  had  just  adjourned, 
and  I  was  directed  to  go  at  once  to  his  room.  He 
was  keeping  at  bay  a  throng  of  callers,  but,  noticing 
me  enter,  arose  and  greeted  me  with  his  old-time 
cordiality.  After  the  room  had  been  partially 
cleared  of  visitors  Secretary  Seward  came  in  and 
called  up  a  case  which  related  to  the  territory  of 
New  Mexico.  '  Oh,  I  see,'  said  Lincoln ;  '  they  have 
neither  Governor  nor  Government.  Well,  you  see 
Jim  Lane  ;  the  secretary  is  his  man,  and  he  must 
hunt  him  up.'  Seward  then  left,  under  the  impres 
sion,  as  I  then  thought,  that  Lincoln  wanted  to  get 
rid  of  him  and  diplomacy  at  the  same  time.  Sev 
eral  other  persons  were  announced,  but  Lincoln 
notified  them  all  that  he  was  busy  and  could  not 
see  them.  He  was  playful  and  sportive  as  a  child, 
told  me  all  sorts  of  anecdotes,  dealing  largely  in 
stones  about  Charles  James  Fox,  and  enquired  after 
several  odd  characters  whom  we  both  knew  in 
Illinois.  While  thus  engaged  General  James  was 
announced.  This  officer  had  sent  in  word  that  he 
would  leave  town  that  evening,  and  must  confer 
with  the  President  before  going.  '  Well,  as  he  is 
one  of  the  fellows  who  make  cannons/  observed 
Lincoln,  '  I  suppose  I  must  see  him.  Tell  him 


254  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

when  I  get  through  with  Whitney  I'll  see  him.' 
No  more  cards  came  up,  and  James  left  about  five 
o'clock,  declaring  that  the  President  was  closeted 
with  '  an  old  Hoosier  from  Illinois,  and  was  telling 
dirty  yarns  while  the  country  was  quietly  going  to 
hell.'  But,  however  indignant  General  James  may 
have  felt,  and  whatever  the  people  may  have 
thought,  still  the  President  was  full  of  the  war. 
He  got  down  his  maps  of  the  seat  of  war,"  con 
tinues  Whitney,  "  and  gave  me  a  full  history  of  the 
preliminary  discussions  and  steps  leading  to  the 
battle  of  Bull  Run.  He  was  opposed  to  the  battle, 
and  explained  to  General  Scott  by  those  very  maps 
how  the  enemy  could  by  the  aid  of  the  railroad  re 
inforce  their  army  at  Manassas  Gap  until  they  had 
brought  every  man  there,  keeping  us  meanwhile  suc 
cessfully  at  bay.  '  I  showed  to  General  Scott  our 
paucity  of  railroad  advantages  at  that  point,'  said 
Lincoln,  '  and  their  plenitude,  but  Scott  was  obdurate 
and  would  not  listen  to  the  possibility  of  defeat. 
Now  you  see  I  was  right,  and  Scott  knows  it,  I 
reckon.  My  plan  was,  and  still  is,  to  make  a  strong 
feint  against  Richmond  and  distract  their  forces 
before  attacking  Manassas.  That  problem  Gen 
eral  McClellan  is  now  trying  to  work  out.'  Mr. 
Lincoln  then  told  me  of  the  plan  he  had  recom 
mended  to  McClellan,  which  was  to  send  gunboats 
up  one  of  the  rivers — not  the  James — in  the  direc 
tion  of  Richmond,  and  divert  the  enemy  there 
while  the  main  attack  was  made  at  Manassas.  I 
took  occasion  to  say  that  McClellan  was  ambitious 
to  be  his  successor.  '  I  am  perfectly  willing/  he 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

answered,  *  if  he  will  only  put  an  end  to  this 
war/"* 

The  interview  of  Mr.  Whitney  with  the  President 
on  this  occasion  is  especially  noteworthy  because 
the  latter  unfolded  to  him  his  idea  of  the  general 
plan  formed  in  his  mind  to  suppress  the  rebellion 
movement  and  defeat  the  Southern  army.  "  The 
President,"  continues  Mr.  Whitney,  "  now  explained 
to  me  his  theory  of  the  Rebellion  by  the  aid  of 
the  maps  before  him.  Running  his  long  forefinger 
down  the  map  he  stopped  at  Virginia.  *  We  must 
drive  them  away  from  here  (Manassas  Gap)/  he 
said,  '  and  clear  them  out  of  this  part  of  the  State 
so  that  they  cannot  threaten  us  here  (Washington) 
and  get  into  Maryland.  We  must  keep  up  a  good 
and  thorough  blockade  of  their  ports.  We  must 
march  an  army  into  east  Tennessee  and  liberate 
the  Union  sentiment  there.  Finally  we  must  rely 
on  the  people  growing  tired  and  saying  to  their 
leaders :  '  We  have  had  enough  of  this  thing,  we 
will  bear  it  no  longer/  " 

Such  was  Mr.  Lincoln's  plan  for  heading  off  the 
Rebellion  in  the  summer  of  1861.  How  it  enlarged 
as  the  war  progressed,  from  a  call  for  seventy-five 
thousand  volunteers  to  one  for  five  hundred  thou 
sand  men  and  five  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  is  a 
matter  now  of  well-known  history.  The  war  once 
inaugurated,  it  was  plain  the  North  had  three  things 
to  do.  These  were  :  the  opening  of  the  Mississippi 
River ;  the  blockade  of  the  Southern  ports  ;  and 

*  This  interview  with  Lincoln  was  written  out  during  the  war,  and 
contains  many  of  his  peculiarities  of  expression. 


2$  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

the  capture  of  Richmond.  To  accomplish  these 
great  and  vital  ends  the  deadly  machinery  of  war 
was  set  in  motion.  The  long-expected  upheaval 
had  come,  and  as  the  torrent  of  fire  broke  forth  the 
people  in  the  agony  of  despair  looking  aloft  cried 
out,  "  Is  our  leader  equal  to  the  task?  "  That  he 
was  the  man  for  the  hour  is  now  the  calm,  unbiassed 
judgment  of  all  mankind. 

The  splendid  victories  early  in  1862  in  the  south 
west,  which  gave  the  Union  cause  great  advance 
toward  the  entire  redemption  of  Kentucky,  Tennes 
see,  and  Missouri  from  the  presence  of  rebel  armies 
and  the  prevalence  of  rebel  influence,  were  counter 
balanced  by  the  dilatory  movements  and  inactive 
policy  of  McClellan,  who  had  been  appointed  in  No 
vember  of  the  preceding  year  to  succeed  the  vener 
able  Scott.  The  forbearance  of  Lincoln  in  dealing 
with  McClellan  was  only  in  keeping  with  his  well- 
known  spirit  of  kindness  ;  but,  when  the  time  came 
and  circumstances  warranted  it,  the  soldier-states 
man  found  that  the  President  not  only  compre 
hended  the  scope  of  the  war,  but  was  determined 
to  be  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy 
himself.  When  it  pleased  him  to  place  McClellan 
again  at  the  head  of  affairs,  over  the  protest  of  such 
a  wilful  and  indomitable  spirit  as  Stanton,  he  dis 
played  elements  of  rare  leadership  and  evidence  of 
uncommon  capacity.  His  confidence  in  the  ability 
and  power  of  Grant,  when  the  press  and  many  of 
the  people  had  turned  against  the  hero  of  Vicks- 
burg,  was  but  another  proof  of  his  sagacity  and 
sound  judgment. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  257 

As  the  bloody  drama  of  war  moves  along  we 
come  now  to  the  crowning  act  in  Mr.  Lincoln's 
career — that  sublime  stroke  with  which  his  name 
will  be  forever  and  indissolubly  united — the  emanci 
pation  of  the  slaves.  In  the  minds  of  many  people 
there  had  been  a  crying  need  for  the  liberation  of 
the  slaves.  Laborious  efforts  had  been  made  to 
hasten  the  issuance  by  the  President  of  the  Eman 
cipation  Proclamation,  but  he  was  determined  not 
to  be  forced  into  premature  and  inoperative  meas 
ures.  Wendell  Phillips  abused  and  held  him  up  to 
public  ridicule  from  the  stump  in  New  England. 
Horace  Greeley  turned  the  batteries  of  the  New 
York  Tribune  against  him ;  and,  in  a  word,  he 
encountered  all  the  rancor  and  hostility  of  his  old 
friends  the  Abolitionists.  General  Fremont  having 
in  the  fall  of  1861  undertaken  by  virtue  of  his 
authority  as  a  military  commander  to  emancipate 
the  slaves  in  his  department,  the  President  annulled 
the  order,  which  he  characterized  as  unauthorized 
and  premature.  This  precipitated  an  avalanche  of 
fanatical  opposition.  Individuals  and  delegations, 
many  claiming  to  have  been  sent  by  the  Lord, 
visited  him  day  after  day,  and  urged  immediate 
emancipation.  In  August,  1862,  Horace  Greeley 
repealed  the  "  prayer  of  twenty  millions  of  peo 
ple  "  protesting  against  any  further  delay.  Such 
was  the  pressure  from  the  outside.  All  his  life 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  a  believer  in  the  doctrine  of 
gradual  emancipation.  He  advocated  it  while  in 
Congress  in  1848  ;  yet  even  now,  as  a  military  neces 
sity,  he  could  not  believe  the  time  was  ripe  for  the 


258  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN- 

general  liberation  of  the  slaves.  All  the  coercion 
from  without,  and  all  the  blandishments  from 
within,  his  political  household  failed  to  move  him. 
An  heroic  figure,  indifferent  alike  to  praise  and 
blame,  he  stood  at  the  helm  and  waited.  In  the 
shadow  of  his  lofty  form  the  smaller  men  could 
keep  up  their  petty  conflicts.  Towering  thus,  he 
overlooked  them  all,  and  fearlessly  abided  his  time. 
At  last  the  great  moment  came.  He  called  his 
Cabinet  together  and  read  the  decree.  The  deed 
was  done,  unalterably,  unhesitatingly,  irrevocably, 
and  triumphantly.  The  people,  at  first  profoundly 
impressed,  stood  aloof,  but,  seeing  the  builder  beside 
the  great  structure  he  had  so  long  been  rearing, 
their  confidence  was  abundantly  renewed.  It  was 
a  glorious  work,  "  sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act  of 
justice  warranted  by  the  constitution  upon  military 
necessity,"  and  upon  it  its  author  "  invoked  the 
considerate  judgment  of  mankind  and  the  gracious 
favor  of  Almighty  God."  I  believe  Mr.  Lincoln 
wished  to  go  down  in  history  as  the  liberator  of  the 
black  man.  He  realized  to  its  fullest  extent  the 
responsibility  and  magnitude  of  the  act,  and 
declared  it  was  "  the  central  act  of  his  administra 
tion  and  the  great  event  of  the  nineteenth  century." 
Always  a  friend  of  the  negro,  he  had  from  boyhood 
waged  a  bitter  unrelenting  warfare  against  his 
enslavement.  He  had  advocated  his  cause  in  the 
courts,  on  the  stump,  in  the  Legislature  of  his  State 
and  that  of  the  nation,  and,  as  if  to  crown  it  with 
a  sacrifice,  he  sealed  his  devotion  to  the  great  cause 
of  freedom  with  his  blood.  As  the  years  roll  slowly 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  259 

by,  and  the  participants  in  the  late  war  drop  grad 
ually  out  of  the  ranks  of  men,  let  us  pray  that  we 
may  never  forget  their  deeds  of  patriotic  valor ;  but 
even  if  the  details  of  that  bloody  struggle  grow 
dim,  as  they  will  with  the  lapse  of  time,  let  us  hope 
that  so  long  as  a  friend  of  free  man  and  free  labor 
lives  the  dust  of  forgetfulness  may  never  settle  on 
the  historic  form  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

As  the  war  progressed,  there  was  of  course  much 
criticism  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  policy,  and  some  of  his  polit 
ical  rivals  lost  no  opportunity  to  encourage  opposi 
tion  to  his  methods.  He  bore  everything  meekly 
and  with  sublime  patience,  but  as  the  discontent  ap 
peared  to  spread  he  felt  called  upon  to  indicate  his 
course.  On  more  than  one  occasion  he  pointed  out 
the  blessings  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  or 
throttled  the  clamorer  for  immediate  peace.  In  the 
following  letter  to  James  C.  Conkling*  of  Springfield, 
111.,  in  reply  to  an  invitation  to  attend  a  mass 
meeting  of  "  Unconditional  Union  "  men  to  be  held 
at  his  old  home,  he  not  only  disposed  of  the  ad 
vocates  of  compromise,  but  he  evinced  the  most 
admirable  skill  in  dealing  with  the  questions  of  the 
day; 


*  "  SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  January  n,  1889. 
"  JESSE  W.  WEIK,  Esq. 

"  Dear  Sir  : 

"  I  enclose  you  a  copy  of  the  letter  dated  August  26,  1863,  by 
Mr.  Lincoln  to  me.  It  has  been  carefully  compared  with  the  original 
and  is  a  correct  copy,  except  that  the  words  commencing  '  I  know  as 
fully  as  one  can  know  '  to  the  words  '  You  say  you  will  fight  to  free 
negroes '  were  not  included  in  the  original,  but  were  telegraphed  the 
next  day  with  instructions  to  insert.  The  following  short  note  in 
Mr.  Lincoln's  own  handwriting  accompanied  the  letter : 


260  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

11  EXECUTIVE  MANSION, 
WASHINGTON,  August  26,  1863. 

"  HON.  JAMES  C.  CONKLING. 
"  My  Dear  Sir  : 

"  Your  letter  inviting  me  to  attend  a  mass  meeting 
of  Unconditional  Union  men,  to  be  held  at  the  Cap 
itol  of  Illinois,  on  the  3d  day  of  September,  has 
been  received. 

"  It  would  be  very  agreeable  to  me  to  thus  meet 
my  old  friends  at  my  own  home ;  but  I  can 
not,  just  now,  be  absent  from  here  so  long  as  a 
visit  there  would  require. 

"  The  meeting  is  to  be  of  all  those  who  maintain 
unconditional  devotion  to  the  Union  ;  and  I  am 
sure  my  old  political  friends  will  thank  me  for 
tendering,  as  I  do,  the  nation's  gratitude  to  those 
other  noble  men,  whom  no  partisan  malice,  or  par 
tisan's  hope,  can  make  false  to  the  nation's  life. 

"  There  are  those  who  are  dissatisfied  with  me. 
To  such  I  would  say :  You  desire  peace ;  and  you 
blame  me  that  we  do  not  have  it.  But  how  can  we 
attain  it  ?  There  are  but  three  conceivable  ways. 

"  First,  to  suppress  the  rebellion  by  force  of  arms. 
This  I  am  trying  to  do.  Are  you  for  it?  If 

[Private.]  "  '  WAR  DEPARTMENT, 

"  *  WASHINGTON  CITY,  D.  C.,  August  27,  1862. 
" '  My  Dear  Conkling : 

" '  I  cannot  leave  here  now.  Herewith  is  a  letter  instead.  You 
are  one  of  the  best  public  readers.  I  have  but  one  suggestion— read 
it  very  slowly.  And  now  God  bless  you,  and  all  good  Union  men. 

"  '  Yours  as  ever, 

"'A.  LINCOLN.' 

"  Mr.  Bancroft,  the  historian,  in  commenting  on  this  letter,  con 
siders  it  addressed  to  me  as  one  who  was  criticising  Mr.  Lincoln's 
policy.  On  the  contrary,  I  was  directed  by  a  meeting  of  '  Uncondi 
tional  Union  '  men  to  invite  Mr.  Lincoln  to  attend  a  mass  meeting 
composed  of  such  men,  and  he  simply  took  occasion  to  address  his 
opponents  through  the  medium  of  the  letter. 

"  Yours  truly, 

"  JAMES  C.  CONKLING." 


THE  LIFE  OF  UNCOLtf.  261 

you  are,  so  far  we  are  agreed.  If  you  are  not  for  it, 
a  second  way  is,  to  give  up  the  Union.  I  am 
against  this.  Are  you  for  it?  If  you  are,  you 
should  say  so  plainly.  If  you  are  not  for  force,  nor 
yet  for  dissolution,  there  only  remains  some  imag 
inable  compromise.  I  do  not  believe  any  compromise, 
embracing  the  maintenance  of  the  Union,  is  now 
possible.  All  I  learn  leads  to  a  directly  opposite 
belief.  The  strength  of  the  rebellion  is  its  military 
— its  army.  That  army  dominates  all  the  country 
and  all  the  people  within  its  range.  Any  offer  of 
terms  made  by  any  man  or  men  within  that  range 
in  opposition  to  that  army  is  simply  nothing  for 
the  present,  because  such  man  or  men  have  no 
power  whatever  to  enforce  their  side  of  a  compro 
mise,  if  one  were  made  with  them.  To  illustrate : 
suppose  refugees  from  the  South,  and  peace  men  of 
the  North,  get  together  in  convention  and  frame 
and  proclaim  a  compromise  embracing  a  restoration 
of  the  Union  ;  in  what  way  can  that  compromise  be 
used  to  keep  Lee's  army  out  of  Pennsylvania  ? 
Meade's  army  can  keep  Lee's  army  out  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  and  I  think  can  ultimately  drive  it  out  of 
existence. 

"  But  no  paper  compromise,  to  which  the  con 
trollers  of  Lee's  army  are  not  agreed,  can  at  all 
affect  that  army.  In  an  effort  at  such  compromise 
we  should  waste  time,  which  the  enemy  would  im 
prove  to  our  disadvantage  ;  and  that  would  be  all. 
A  compromise,  to  be  effective,  must  be  made  either 
with  those  who  control  the  rebel  army,  or  with  the 
people  first  liberated  from  the  domination  of  that 
army  by  the  success  of  our  own  army.  Now  allow 
me  to  assure  you  that  no  word  or  intimation  from 
that  rebel  army  or  from  any  of  the  men  controlling 
it,  in  relation  to  any  peace  compromise,  has  ever 
come  to  my  knowledge  or  belief. 

"  All  changes  and  insinuations   to   the    contrary 


262  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

are  deceptive  and  groundless.  And  I  promise  you 
that,  if  any  such  proposition  shall  hereafter  come,  it 
shall  not  be  rejected  and  kept  a  secret  from  you.  I 
freely  acknowledge  myself  the  servant  of  the  people, 
according  to  the  bond  of  service — the  United  States 
Constitution,  and  that,  as  such,  I  am  responsible 
to  them. 

"  But  to  be  plain,  you  are  dissatisfied  with  me 
about  the  negro.  Quite  likely  there  is  a  difference  of 
opinion  between  you  and  myself  upon  that  subject. 

"  I  certainly  wish  that  all  men  could  be  free, 
while  I  suppose  you  do  not.  Yet  I  have  neither 
adopted  nor  proposed  any  measure  which  is  not 
consistent  with  even  your  view,  provided  you  are 
for  the  Union.  I  suggested  compensated  emanci 
pation  ;  to  which  you  replied  you  wished  not  to  be 
taxed  to  buy  negroes.  But  I  had  not  asked  you  to 
be  taxed  to  buy  negroes,  except  in  such  way  as  to 
save  you  from  greater  taxation  to  save  the  Union 
exclusively  by  other  means. 

"You  dislike  the  Emancipation  Proclamation, 
and,  perhaps,  would  have  it  retracted.  You 
say  it  is  unconstitutional — I  think  differently. 
I  think  the  constitution  invests  its  Commander- 
in-chief  with  the  law  of  war  in  time  of  war.  The 
most  that  can  be  said,  if  so  much,  is  that  slaves 
are  property.  Is  there — has  there  ever  been — any 
question  that  by  the  law  of  war,  property,  both 
of  enemies  and  friends,  may  be  taken  when  needed  ? 

"  And  is  it  not  needed  wherever  taking  it  helps 
us  or  hurts  the  enemy?  Armies  the  world  over 
destroy  enemies'  property  when  they  cannot  use  it ; 
and  even  destroy  their  own  to  keep  it  from  the 
enemy.  Civilized  belligerents  do  all  in  their  power 
to  help  themselves  or  hurt  the  enemy,  except  a  few 
things  regarded  as  barbarous  or  cruel. 

"  Among  the  exceptions  are  the  massacre  of  van 
quished  foes  and  non-combatants,  male  and  female. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  263 

"  But  the  proclamation,  as  law,  either  is  valid  or 
is  not  valid. 

"  If  it  is  not  valid,  it  needs  no  retraction.  If  it  is 
valid,  it  cannot  be  retracted  any  more  than  the 
dead  can  be  brought  to  life.  Some  of  you  profess 
to  think  its  retraction  would  operate  favorably  for 
the  Union. 

"  Why  better  after  the  retraction  than  before  the 
issue  ? 

"  There  was  more  than  a  year  and  a  half  of  trial 
to  suppress  the  rebellion  before  the  proclamation 
issued,  the  last  one  hundred  days  of  which  passed 
under  an  explicit  notice  that  it  was  coming,  un 
less  averted  by  those  in  revolt  returning  to  their 
allegiance. 

"The  war  has  certainly  progressed  as  favorably 
for  us  since  the  issue  of  the  proclamation  as  be 
fore. 

"  I  know  as  fully  as  one  can  know  the  opinion 
of  others  that  some  of  the  commanders  of  our 
armies  in  the  field  who  have  given  us  our  most  im 
portant  successes  believe  the  emancipation  policy 
and  the  use  of  the  colored  troops  constituted  the 
heaviest  blow  yet  dealt  to  the  Rebellion,  and  that 
at  least  one  of  these  important  successes  could  not 
have  been  achieved  when  it  was  but  for  the  aid  of 
black  soldiers.  Among  the  commanders  holding 
these  views  are  some  who  have  never  had  any 
affinity  with  what  is  called  abolitionism  or  with  Re 
publican  party  policies,  but  who  held  them  purely 
as  military  opinions.  I  submit  these  opinions  as 
being  entitled  to  some  weight  against  the  objec 
tions  often  urged  that  emancipation  and  arming  the 
blacks  are  unwise  as  military  measures,  and  were 
not  adopted  as  such  in  good  faith. 

"  You  say  you  will  not  fight  to  free  negroes. 
Some  of  them  seem  willing  to  fight  for  you  ;  but  no 
matter. 

41 


264  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

"  Fight  you,  then,  exclusively  to  save  the  Union. 
I  issued  the  proclamation  on  purpose  to  aid  you  in 
saving  the  Union.  Whenever  you  shall  have  con 
quered  all  resistance  to  the  Union,  if  I  shall  urge 
you  to  continue  fighting,  it  will  be  an  apt  time 
then  for  you  to  declare  you  will  not  fight  to  free 
negroes. 

"  I  thought  that  in  your  struggle  for  the  Union, 
to  whatever  extent  the  negroes  should  cease  help 
ing  the  enemy,  to  that  extent  it  weakened  the 
enemy  in  his  resistance  to  you.  Do  you  think  dif 
ferently  ?  I  thought  that  whatever  negroes  can  be 
got  to  do  as  soldiers  leaves  just  so  much  less  for 
white  soldiers  to  do,  in  saving  the  Union.  Does  it 
appear  otherwise  to  you  ? 

"  But  negroes,  like  other  people,  act  upon 
motives.  Why  should  they  do  anything  for  us,  if 
we  will  do  nothing  for  them  ?  If  they  stake  their 
lives  for  us,  they  must  be  prompted  by  the  strongest 
motive — even  the  promise  of  freedom.  And  the 
promise  being  made,  must  be  kept. 

"  The  signs  look  better.  The  Father  of  Waters 
again  goes  unvexed  to  the  sea.  Thanks  to  the 
great  North-west  for  it.  Nor  yet  wholly  to  them. 
Three  hundred  miles  up  they  met  New  England, 
Empire,  Keystone,  and  Jersey,  hewing  their  way 
right  and  left.  The  Sunny  South  too,  in  more 
colors  than  one,  also  lent  a  hand. 

"  On  the  spot,  their  part  of  the  history  was  jotted 
down  in  black  and  white.  The  job  was  a  great 
national  one  ;  and  let  none  be  barred  who  bore  an 
honorable  part  in  it.  And  while  those  who  have 
cleared  the  great  river  may  well  be  proud,  even  that 
is  not  all.  It  is  hard  to  say  that  anything  has  been 
more  bravely  and  well  done  than  at  Antietam, 
Murfreesboro,  Gettysburg,  and  on  many  fields  of 
lesser  note.  Nor  must  Uncle  Sam's  web-feet  be 
forgotten.  At  all  the  watery  margins  they  have 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  26$ 

been  present.  Not  only  on  the  deep  sea,  the  broad 
bay,  and  the  rapid  river,  but  also  up  the  narrow, 
muddy  bayou,  and  wherever  the  ground  was  a  little 
damp,  they  have  been,  and  made  their  tracks, 
thanks  to  all.  For  the  great  republic — for  the  prin 
ciple  it  lives  by  and  keeps  alive — for  man's  vast 
future — thanks  to  all. 

"  Peace  does  not  appear  so  distant  as  it  did.  I 
hope  it  will  come  soon  and  come  to  stay,  and  so 
come  as  to  be  worth  the  keeping  in  all  future  time. 
It  will  then  have  been  proved  that,  among  free 
men,  there  can  be  no  successful  appeal  from  the 
ballot  to  the  bullet ;  and  that  they  who  take  such 
appeal  are  sure  to  lose  their  case  and  pay  the  cost. 
And  then  there  will  be  some  black  men  who  can 
remember  that,  with  silent  tongue,  and  clenched 
teeth,  and  steady  eye,  and  well-poised  bayonet,  they 
have  helped  mankind  on  to  this  great  consumma 
tion  ;  while  I  fear  there  will  be  some  white  ones, 
unable  to  forget  that,  with  malignant  heart  and  de 
ceitful  speech,  they  have  strove  to  hinder  it. 

"  Still,  let  us  not  be  over-sanguine  of  a  speedy 
final  triumph.  Let  us  be  quite  sober.  Let  us  dili 
gently  apply  the  means,  never  doubting  that 
a  just  God,  in  his  own  good  time,  will  give  us  the 
rightful  result. 

"  Yours  very  truly, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

The  summer  and  fall  of  1864  were  marked  by  Lin 
coln's  second  Presidential  campaign,  he,  and  Andrew 
Johnson,  of  Tennessee,  for  Vice-President,  having 
been  nominated  at  Baltimore  on  the  8th  of  June. 
Fremont,  who  had  been  placed  in  the  field  by  a  con 
vention  of  malcontents  at  Cleveland,  Ohio,  had 
withdrawn  in  September,  and  the  contest  was  left 
to  Lincoln  and  General  George  B.  McClellan,  the 


266  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

nominee  of  the  Democratic  convention  at  Chicago, 
The  canvass  was  a  heated  and  bitter  one.  Dissat 
isfied  elements  appeared  everywhere.  The  Judge 
Advocate-General  of  the  army  (Holt)  created  a 
sensation  by  the  publication  of  a  report  giving  con 
clusive  proof  of  the  existence  of  an  organized  secret 
association  at  the  North,  controlled  by  prominent 
men  in  the  Democratic  party,  whose  objects  were 
the  overthrow  by  revolution  of  the  administration 
in  the  interest  of  the  rebellion.*  Threats  were  rife 

*  "  Mr.  Lincoln  was  advised,  and  I  also  so  advised  him,  that  the 
various  military  trials  in  the  Northern  and  Border  States,  where  the 
courts  were  free  and  untrammelled,  were  unconstitutional  and  wrong; 
that  they  would  not  and  ought  not  to  be  sustained  by  the  Supreme 
Court ;  that  such  proceedings  were  dangerous  to  liberty.  He  said  he 
was  opposed  to  hanging  ;  that  he  did  not  like  to  kill  his  fellow-man  ; 
that  if  the  world  had  no  butchers  but  himself  it  would  go  bloodless. 
When  Joseph  E.  McDonald  went  to  Lincoln  about  these  military 
trials  and  asked  him  not  to  execute  the  men  who  had  been  con 
victed  by  the  military  commission  in  Indiana  he  answered  that  he 
would  not  hang  them,  but  added,  '  I'll  keep  them  in  prison  awhile  to 
keep  them  from  killing  the  Government.'  I  am  fully  satisfied  there 
fore  that  Lincoln  was  opposed  to  these  military  commissions,  es 
pecially  in  the  Northern  States,  where  everything  was  open  and 
free."— David  Davis,  statement,  September  10,  1866,  to  W.  H.  H. 

"  I  was  counsel  for  Bowles,  Milligan,  et  a/.,  who  had  been  con 
victed  of  conspiracy  by  military  tribunal  in  Indiana.  Early  in  1865 
I  went  to  Washington  to  confer  with  the  President,  whom  I  had 
known,  and  with  whom  in  earlier  days  I  had  practised  law  on  the  cir 
cuit  in  Illinois.  My  clients  had  been  sentenced,  and  unless  the  Pres 
ident  interfered  were  to  have  been  executed.  Mr.  Hendricks,  who 
was  then  in  the  Senate,  and  who  seemed  to  have  little  faith  in  the 
probability  of  executive  clemency,  accompanied  me  to  the  White 
House.  It  was  early  in  the  evening,  and  so  many  callers  and  visit 
ors  had  preceded  us  we  anticipated  a  very  brief  interview.  Much 
to  our  surprise  we  found  Mr.  Lincoln  in  a  singularly  cheerful  and 
reminiscent  mood.  He  kept  us  with  him  till  almost  eleven  o'clock. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  267 

of  a  revolution  at  the  North,  especially  in  New  York 
City,  if  Mr.  Lincoln  were  elected.  Mr.  Lincoln  went 
steadily  on  in  his  own  peculiar  way.  In  a  preceding 
chapter  Mr.  Swett  has  told  us  how  indifferent  he 
appeared  to  be  regarding  any  efforts  to  be  made  in 
his  behalf.  He  did  his  duty  as  President,  and  rested 
secure  in  the  belief  that  he  would  be  re-elected 
whatever  might  be  done  for  or  against  him.  The 
importance  of  retaining  Indiana  in  the  column  of 
Republican  States  was  not  to  be  overlooked.  How 
the  President  viewed  it,  and  how  he  proposed  to  se 
cure  the  vote  of  the  State,  is  shown  in  the  following 
letter  written  to  General  Sherman : 

"EXECUTIVE  MANSION, 
"WASHINGTON,  September  19,  1864. 

"  MAJOR  GENERAL  SHERMAN  : 

"The  State  election  of  Indiana  occurs  on  the  nth 
of  October,  and  the  loss  of  it  to  the  friends  of  the 
Government  would  go  far  towards  losing  the  whole 
Union  cause.  The  bad  effect  upon  the  November 
election,  and  especially  the  giving  the  State  govern 
ment  to  those  who  will  oppose  the  war  in  every 

He  went  over  the  history  of  my  clients'  crime  as  shown  by  the 
papers  in  the  case,  and  suggested  certain  errors  and  imperfections  in 
the  record.  The  papers,  he  explained,  would  have  to  be  returned  for 
correction,  and  that  would  consume  no  little  time.  '  You  may  go 
home,  Mr.  McDonald,'  he  said,  with  a  pleased  expression,  'and  I'll 
send  for  you  when  the  papers  get  back ;  but  I  apprehend  and  hope 
there  will  be  such  a  jubilee  over  yonder,'  he  added,  pointing  to  the 
hills  of  Virginia  just  across  the  river,  'we  shall  none  of  us  want  any 
more  killing  done.'  The  papers  started  on  their  long  and  circuit 
ous  journey,  and  sure  enough,  before  they  reached  Washington  again 
>ir.  Lincoln's  prediction  of  the  return  of  peace  had  proved  true.' ' — 
Hon.  Joseph  E.  McDonald,  statement,  August  28, 1888,  to  J.  W.  W 


268  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

possible  way,  are  too  much  to  risk  if  it  can  be 
avoided.  The  draft  proceeds,  notwithstanding  its 
strong  tendency  to  lose  us  the  State.  Indiana  is 
the  only  important  State  voting  in  October  whose 
soldiers  cannot  vote  in  the  field.  Anything  you 
can  safely  do  to  let  her  soldiers  or  any  part  of  them 
go  home  and  vote  at  the  State  election  will  be 
greatly  in  point.  They  need  not  remain  for  the 
Presidential  election,  but  may  return  to  you  at  once. 
This  is  in  no  sense  an  order,  but  is  merely  intended 
to  impress  you  with  the  importance  to  the  army  it 
self  of  your  doing  all  you  safely  can,  yourself  being 
the  judge  of  what  you  can  safely  do. 

"  Yours  truly, 

"  A.  LINCOLN."  * 

The  election  resulted  in  an  overwhelming  victory 
for  Lincoln.  He  received  a  majority  of  over  four 
hundred  thousand  in  the  popular  vote — a  larger 
majority  than  had  ever  been  received  by  any  other 
President  up  to  that  time.  He  carried  not  only 
Indiana,  but  all  the  New  England  States,  New 
York,  Pennsylvania,  all  the  Western  States,  West 
Virginia,  Tennessee,  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  and  the 
newly  admitted  State  of  Nevada.  McClellan  car 
ried  but  three  states :  New  Jersey,  Delaware,  and 
Kentucky.  The  result,  as  Grant  so  aptly  expressed 
it  in  his  telegram  of  congratulation,  was  "  a  victory 
worth  more  to  the  country  than  a  battle  won."  A 
second  time  Lincoln  stood  in  front  of  the  great 
Capitol  to  take  the  oath  of  office  administered  by 
his  former  rival,  Salmon  P.  Chase,  whom  he  himself 
had  appointed  to  succeed  the  deceased  Roger  B. 

*  Unpublished  MS. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  269 

Taney.  The  problem  of  the  war  was  now  fast  work- 
ing  its  own  solution.  The  cruel  stain  of  slavery  had 
been  effaced  from  the  national  escutcheon,  and  the 
rosy  morn  of  peace  began  to  dawn  behind  the 
breaking  clouds  of  the  great  storm.*  Lincoln,  firm 

*  Bearing  on  the  mission  of  the  celebrated  Peace  Commission  the 
following  bit  of  inside  history  is  not  without  interest : 

"  I  had  given  notice  that  at  one  o'clock  on  the  3ist  of  January  I 
would  call  a  vote  on  the  proposed  constitutional  amendment  abol 
ishing  slavery  in  the  United  States.  The  opposition  caught  up  a 
report  that  morning  that  Peace  Commissioners  were  on  the  way  to 
the  city  or  were  in  the  city.  Had  this  been  true  I  think  the  pro 
posed  amendment  would  have  failed,  as  a  number  who  voted  for  it 
could  easily  have  been  prevailed  upon  to  vote  against  it  on  the 
ground  that  the  passage  of  such  a  proposition  would  be  offensive  to 
the  commissioners,  Accordingly  I  wrote  the  President  this  note  : 


" «  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 
"'January  31,  1865. 


" '  Dear  Sir : 

" '  The  report  is  in  circulation  in  the  House  that  Peace  Com 
missioners  are  on  their  way  or  in  the  city,  and  is  being  used  against 
us.  If  it  is  true,  I  fear  we  shall  lose  the  bill.  Please  authorize  me 
to  contradict  it,  if  it  is  not  true. 

"  '  Respectfully, 

"  *  J.  M.  ASHLEY.' 
To  the  President. 

Almost  immediately  came  the  reply,  written  on  the  back  of  my 
note : 

" '  So  far  as  I  know  there  are  no  Peace  Commissioners  in  the  city 
or  likely  to  be  in  it.  " '  A.  LINCOLN.' 

January  31,  1865. 

"  Mr.  Lincoln  knew  that  the  commissioners  were  then  on  their 
way  to  Fortress  Monroe,  where  he  expected  to  meet  them,  and  after 
wards  did  meet  them.  You  see  how  he  answered  my  note  for  my 
purposes,  and  yet  how  truly.  You  know  how  he  afterwards  met  the 
so-called  commission,  whom  he  determined  at  the  time  he  wrote 
this  note  should  not  come  to  the  city.  One  or  two  gentlemen  were 
present  when  he  wrote  the  note,  to  whom  he  read  it  before  sending  it 
to  me."— J.  M.  Ashley,  M.  C.,  letter,  November  23,  1866,  MS. 


2/O  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

but  kind,  in  his  inaugural  address  bade  his  mis 
guided  brethren  of  the  South  come  back.  With  a 
fraternal  affection  characteristic  of  the  man,  and 
strictly  in  keeping  with  his  former  utterances,  he 
asked  for  the  return  of  peace.  "  With  malice 
towards  none,  with  charity  for  all,"  he  implored 
his  fellow-countrymen,  "  with  firmness  in  the  right 
as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  finish  the 
work  we  are  in,  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds,  to 
care  for  him  who  shall  have  borne  the  battle  and  for 
his  widow  and  his  orphans,  to  do  all  which  may 
achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  a  lasting  peace 
among  ourselves  and  with  all  nations."  With  the 
coming  of  spring  the  great  armies,  awakening  from 
their  long  winter's  sleep,  began  preparations  for  the 
closing  campaign.  Sherman  had  already  made 
that  grandest  march  of  modern  times,  from  the 
mountains  of  Tennessee  through  Georgia  to  the 
sea,  while  Grant,  with  stolid  indifference  to  public 
criticism  and  newspaper  abuse,  was  creeping  stead- 
ily  on  through  swamp  and  ravine  to  Richmond. 
Thomas  had  defeated  Hood  in  Tennessee,  sending 
the  latter  back  with  his  army  demoralized,  cut  in 
pieces,  and  ruined.  The  young  and  daring  Sher 
idan  had  driven  Early  out  of  the  Shenandoah 
Valley  after  a  series  of  brilliant  engagements.  The 
"  Kearsarge  "  had  sunk  the  "  Alabama  "  in  foreign 
waters.  Farragut  had  captured  Mobile,  and  the 
Union  forces  held  undisputed  possession  of  the  West 
and  the  Mississippi  Valley  from  the  lakes  to  the  gulf. 
Meanwhile  Sherman,  undaunted  by  the  perils  of  a 
further  march  through  the  enemy's  country,  return- 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  2JI 

ing  from  the  sea,  was  aiming  for  Richmond,  where 
Grant,  with  bull-dog  tenacity,  held  Lee  firmly  in  his 
grasp.  Erelong,  the  latter,  with  his  shattered  army 
reduced  to  half  its  original  numbers,  evacuated 
Richmond,  with  Grant  in  close  pursuit.  A  few 
days  later  the  boys  in  blue  overtook  those  in  gray 
at  Appomattox  Court-house,  and  there,  under  the 
warm  rays  of  an  April  sun,  the  life  was  at  last 
squeezed  out  of  the  once  proud  but  now  prostrate 
Confederacy.  "The  sun  of  peace  had  fairly  risen. 
The  incubus  of  war  that  had  pressed  upon  the 
nation's  heart  for  four  long,  weary  years  was  lifted  ; 
and  the  nation  sprang  to  its  feet  with  all  possible 
demonstrations  of  joyous  exultation." 

Mr.  Lincoln  himself  had  gone  to  the  scene  of 
hostilities  in  Virginia.  He  watched  the  various 
military  manoeuvres  and  operations,  which  involved 
momentous  consequences  to  the  country ;  he  wit 
nessed  some  of  the  bloody  engagements  participated 
in  by  the  army  of  the  Potomac.  Within  a  day 
after  its  surrender  he  followed  the  victorious  Union 
army  into  the  city  of  Richmond.  In  this  unfortu 
nate  city — once  the  proud  capital  of  Virginia — now 
smoking  and  in  ruins,  he  beheld  the  real  horrors  of 
grim  war.  Here  too  he  realized  in  a  bountiful 
measure  the  earnest  gratitude  of  the  colored  people, 
who  everywhere  crowded  around  him  and  with 
cries  of  intense  exultation  greeted  him  as  their 
deliverer.  He  now  returned  to  Washington,  not 
like  Napoleon  fleeing  sorrowfully  from  Waterloo 
bearing  the  tidings  of  his  own  defeat,  but  with  joy 
proclaiming  the  era  of  Union  victory  and  peace 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

among  men.  "  The  war  was  over.  The  great 
rebellion  which  for  four  long  years  had  been  assail 
ing  the  nation's  life  was  quelled.  Richmond,  the 
rebel  capital,  was  taken  ;  Lee's  army  had  surren 
dered  ;  and  the  flag  of  the  Union  was  floating  in 
reassured  supremacy  over  the  whole  of  the  National 
domain.  Friday,  the  I4th  of  April,  the  anniversary 
of  the  surrender  of  Fort  Sumter  in  1861  by  Major 
Anderson  to  the  rebel  forces,  had  been  designated 
by  the  Government  as  the  day  on  which  the  same 
officer  should  again  raise  the  American  flag  upon 
the  fort  in  the  presence  of  an  assembled  multitude, 
and  with  ceremonies  befitting  so  auspicious  an 
occasion.  The  whole  land  rejoiced  at  the  return 
of  peace  and  the  prospect  of  renewed  prosperity 
to  the  country.  President  Lincoln  shared  this  com 
mon  joy,  but  with  a  deep  intensity  of  feeling  which 
no  other  man  in  the  whole  land  could  ever  know. 
He  saw  the  full  fruition  of  the  great  work  which 
had  rested  so  heavily  on  his  hands  and  heart  for 
four  years  past.  He  saw  the  great  task — as 
momentous  as  had  ever  fallen  to  the  lot  of  man 
— which  he  had  approached  with  such  unfeigned 
diffidence,  nearly  at  an  end.  The  agonies  of  war 
had  passed  away ;  he  had  won  the  imperishable 
renown  which  is  the  reward  of  those  who  save  their 
country;  and  he  could  devote  himself  now  to  the 
welcome  task  of  healing  the  wounds  which  war  had 
made,  and  consolidating  by  a  wise  and  magnani 
mous  policy  the  severed  sections  of  our  common 
Union.  His  heart  was  full  of  the  generous  senti 
ments  which  these  circumstances  were  so  well  cal- 


FORD'S  THEATRE,  WASHINGTON. 

Photographed  by  J.  F.  Jarvis,  1887. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  273 

culated  to  inspire.  He  was  cheerful  and  hopeful 
of  the  success  of  his  broad  plans  for  the  treatment 
of  the  conquered  people  of  the  South.  With  all 
the  warmth  of  his  loving  nature,  after  the  four 
years  of  storm  through  which  he  had  been  com 
pelled  to  pass,  he  viewed  the  peaceful  sky  on  which 
the  opening  of  his  second  term  had  dawned.  His 
mind  was  free  from  forebodings  and  filled  only  with 
thoughts  of  kindness  and  of  future  peace."  But 
alas  for  the  vanity  of  human  confidence!  The 
demon  of  assassination  lurked  near.  In  the  midst 
of  the  general  rejoicing  at  the  return  of  peace  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  stricken  down  by  the  assassin,  John 
Wilkes  Booth,  in  Ford's  Theatre  at  Washington. 
The  story  of  his  death,  though  oft  repeated,  is  the 
saddest  and  most  impressive  page  in  American  his 
tory.  I  cannot  well  forbear  reproducing  its  painful 
and  tragic  details  here.* 

"  Mr.  Lincoln  for  years  had  a  presentiment  that 
he  would  reach  a  high  place  and  then  be  stricken 
down  in  some  tragic  way.  He  took  no  precautions 
to  keep  out  of  the  way  of  danger.  So  many 
threats  had  been  made  against  him  that  his  friends 
were  alarmed,  and  frequently  urged  him  not  to  go 
out  unattended.  To  all  their  entreaties  he  had  the 
same  answer :  '  If  they  kill  me  the  next  man  will 
be  just  as  bad  for  them.  In  a  country  like  this, 
where  our  habits  are  simple,  and  must  be,  assassina- 

*  For  the  details  of  the  assassination  and  the  capture  and  subse 
quent  history  of  the  conspirators,  I  am  indebted  to  Mrs.  Gertrude 
Garrison,  of  New  York,  who  has  given  the  subject  no  little  study 
and  investigation.  J.  W.  W. 


2/4  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

tion  is  always  possible,  and  will  come  if  they  are 
determined  upon  it.' 

"  Whatever  premonition  of  his  tragic  fate  he  may 
have  had,  there  is  nothing  to  prove  that  he  felt  the 
nearness  of  the  awful  hour.  Doomed  men  rise  and 
go  about  their  daily  duties  as  unoppressed,  often, 
as  those  whose  paths  know  no  shadow.  On  that 
never-to-be-forgotten  I4th  of  April  President  Lin 
coln  passed  the  day  in  the  usual  manner.  In  the 
morning  his  son,  Captain  Robert  Lincoln,  break 
fasted  with  him.  The  young  man  had  just 
returned  from  the  capitulation  of  Lee,  and  he 
described  in  detail  all  the  circumstances  of  that 
momentous  episode  of  the  close  of  the  war,  to 
which  the  President  listened  with  the  closest 
interest.  After  breakfast  the  President  spent  an 
hour  with  Speaker  Colfax,  talking  about  his  future 
policy,  about  to  be  submitted  to  his  Cabinet.  At 
eleven  o'clock  he  met  the  Cabinet.  General  Grant 
was  present.  He  spent  the  afternoon  with  Gov 
ernor  Oglesby,  Senator  Yates,  and  other  friends 
from  Illinois.  He  was  invited  by  the  manager  of 
Ford's  theatre,  in  Washington,  to  attend  in  the 
evening  a  performance  of  the  play,  '  Our  Ameri 
can  Cousin,'  with  Laura  Keene  as  the  leading  lady. 
This  play,  now  so  well  known  to  all  play-goers, 
in  which  the  late  Sothern  afterward  made  fortune 
and  fame,  was  then  comparatively  unheralded. 
Lincoln  was  fond  of  the  drama.  Brought  up  in  a 
provincial  way,  in  the  days  when  theatres  were 
unknown  outside  of  the  larger  cities,  the  beautiful 
art  of  the  actor  was  fresh  and  delightful  to  him. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  2/5 

He  loved  Shakespeare,  and  never  lost  an  oppor 
tunity  of  seeing  his  characters  rendered  by  the 
masters  of  dramatic  art.  But  on  that  evening,  it  is 
said,  he  was  not  eager  to  go.  The  play  was  new, 
consequently  not  alluring  to  him  ;  but  he  yielded 
to  the  wishes  of  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  went.  They 
took  with  them  Miss  Harris  and  Major  Rathbone, 
daughter  and  stepson  of  Senator  Harris,  of  New 
York. 

"  The  theatre  was  crowded.  At  9 :  20  the  Presi 
dent  and  his  party  entered.  The  audience  rose  and 
cheered  enthusiastically  as  they  passed  to  the  '  state 
box '  reserved  for  them.  Little  did  anyone  present 
dream  that  within  the  hour  enthusiasm  would 
give  place  to  shrieks  of  horror.  It  was  ten  o'clock 
when  Booth  came  upon  the  scene  to  enact  the  last 
and  greatest  tragedy  of  the  war.  He  had  planned 
carefully,  but  not  correctly.  A  good  horse  awaited 
him  at  the  rear  of  the  theatre,  on  which  he 
intended  to  ride  into  friendly  shelter  among  the 
hills  of  Maryland.  He  made  his  way  to  the  Presi 
dent's  box — a  double  one  in  the  second  tier,  at  the 
left  of  the  stage.  The  separating  partition  had 
been  removed,  and  both  boxes  thrown  into  one. 

"  Booth  entered  the  theatre  nonchalantly,  glanced 
at  the  stage  with  apparent  interest,  then  slowly 
worked  his  way  around  into  the  outer  passage  lead 
ing  toward  the  box  occupied  by  the  President.  At 
the  end  of  an  inner  passage  leading  to  the  box  door, 
one  of  the  President's  "  messengers  "  was  stationed 
to  prevent  unwelcome  intrusions.  Booth  presented 
a  card  to  him,  stating  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  sent 


276  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

for  him,  and  was  permitted  to  pass.  After  gaining 
an  entrance  and  closing  the  hall  door,  he  took  a 
piece  of  board  prepared  for  the  occasion,  and  placed 
one  end  of  it  in  an  indentation  in  the  wall,  about 
four  feet  from  the  floor,  and  the  other  against  the 
molding  of  the  door  panel  a  few  inches  higher, 
making  it  impossible  for  any  one  to  enter  from 
without.  The  box  had  two  doors.  He  bored  a 
gimlet  hole  in  the  panel  of  one,  reaming  it  out  with 
his  knife,  so  as  to  leave  it  a  little  larger  than  a 
buckshot  on  the  inside,  while  on  the  other  side  it 
was  big  enough  to  give  his  eye  a  wide  range. 
Both  doors  had  spring  locks.  To  secure  against 
their  being  locked  he  had  loosened  the  screws  with 
which  the  bolts  were  fastened. 

"  So  deliberately  had  he  planned  that  the  very 
seats*  in  the  box  had  been  arranged  to  suit  his 
purpose  by  an  accomplice,  one  Spangler,  an 
attache  of  the  theatre.  The  President  sat  in  the 
left-hand  corner  of  the  box,  nearest  the  audi 
ence,  in  an  easy  arm-chair.  Next  him,  on  the  right, 
sat  Mrs.  Lincoln.  A  little  distance  to  the  right  of 
both,  Miss  Harris  was  seated,  with  Major  Rathbone 
at  her  left,  and  a  little  in  the  rear  of  Mrs.  Lincoln, 
who,  intent  on  the  play,  was  leaning  forward,  with 
one  hand  resting  on  her  husband's  knee.  The 
President  was  leaning  upon  one  hand,  and  with  the 
other  was  toying  with  a  portion  of  the  drapery. 
His  face  was  partially  turned  to  the  audience,  and 
wore  a  pleasant  smile. 

"  The  assassin  swiftly  entered  the  box  through 
the  door  at  the  right,  and  the  next  instant  fired. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  2/7 

The  ball  entered  just  behind  the  President's  left 
ear,  and,  thougn  not  producing  instantaneous  death, 
completely  obliterated  all  consciousness. 

"  Major  Rathbone  heard  the  report,  and  an  in 
stant  later  saw  the  murderer,  about  six  feet  from 
the  President,  and  grappled  with  him,  but  his  grasp 
was  shaken  off.  Booth  dropped  his  pistol  and  drew 
a  long,  thin,  deadly-looking  knife,  with  which  he 
wounded  the  major.  Then,  touching  his  left  hand 
to  the  railing  of  the  box,  he  vaulted  over  to  the 
stage,  eight  or  nine  feet  below.  In  that  descent  an 
unlooked-for  and  curious  thing  happened,  which 
foiled  all  the  plans  of  the  assassin  and  was  the 
means  of  bringing  him  to  bay  at  last.  Lincoln's 
box  was  draped  with  the  American  flag,  and  Booth, 
in  jumping,  caught  his  spur  in  its  folds,  tearing  it 
down  and  spraining  his  ankle.  He  crouched  as  he 
fell,  falling  upon  one  knee,  but  soon  straightened 
himself  and  stalked  theatrically  across  the  stage, 
brandishing  his  knife  and  shouting  the  State  motto 
of  Virginia,  '  Sic  semper  tyrannis ! '  afterward 
adding,  '  The  South  is  avenged  ! '  He  made  his 
exit  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  stage,  passing  Miss 
Keene  as  he  went  out.  A  man  named  Stewart,  a 
tall  lawyer  of  Washington,  was  the  only  person 
with  presence  of  mind  enough  to  spring  upon  the 
stage  and  follow  him,  and  he  was  too  late. 

"  It  had  all  been  done  so  quickly  and  dramati 
cally  that  many  in  the  audience  were  dazed,  and 
could  not  understand  that  anything  not  a  part  of 
the  play  had  happened.  When,  at  last,  the  awful 
truth  was  known  to  them  there  ensued  a  scene,  the 


278  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

like  of  which  was  never  known  in  a  theatre  before. 
Women  shrieked,  sobbed,  and  fainted.  Men  cursed 
and  raved,  or  were  dumb  with  horror  and  amaze 
ment.  Miss  Keene  stepped  to  the  front  and  begged 
the  frightened  and  dismayed  audience  to  be  calm. 
Then  she  entered  the  President's  box  with  watet 
and  stimulants.  Medical  aid  was  summoned  and 
came  with  flying  feet,  but  came  too  late.  The 
murderer's  bullet  had  done  its  wicked  work  well. 
The  President  hardly  stirred  in  his  chair,  and  never 
spoke  or  showed  any  signs  of  consciousness  again. 

"  They  carried  him  immediately  to  the  house  of 
Mr.  Petersen,  opposite  the  theatre,  and  there, 
at  7:22  the  next  morning,  the  i$th  of  April,  he 
died. 

"  The  night  of  Lincoln's  assassination  was  a  mem 
orable  one  in  Washington.  Secretary  Seward  was 
attacked  and  wounded  while  lying  in  bed  with  a 
broken  arm. 

"  The  murder  of  the  President  put  the  authorities 
on  their  guard  against  a  wide-reaching  conspiracy, 
and  threw  the  public  into  a  state  of  terror.  The 
awful  event  was  felt  even  by  those  who  knew  not 
of  it.  Horsemen  clattered  through  the  silent 
streets  of  Washington,  spreading  the  sad  tidings, 
and  the  telegraph  wires  carried  the  terrible  story 
everywhere.  The  nation  awakened  from  its  dream 
of  peace  on  the  i$th  of  April,  1865,  to  learn  that 
its  protector,  leader,  friend,  and  restorer  had  been 
laid  low  by  a  stage-mad  '  avenger. '  W.  O.  Stod- 
dard,  in  his  '  Life  of  Lincoln/  says :  '  It  was  as  if 
there  had  been  a  death  in  every  house  throughout 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  279 

the  land.  By  both  North  and  South  alike  the  awful 
news  was  received  with  a  shudder  and  a  momentary 
spasm  of  unbelief.  Then  followed  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  spectacles  in  the  history  of  the  human 
race,  for  there  is  nothing  else  at  all  like  it  on  record. 
Bells  had  tolled  before  at  the  death  of  a  loved  ruler, 
but  never  did  all  bells  toll  so  mournfully  as  they  did 
that  day.  Business  ceased.  Men  came  together 
in  public  meetings  as  if  by  a  common  impulse,  and 
party  lines  and  sectional  hatreds  seemed  to  be 
obliterated. 

"  The  assassination  took  place  on  Friday  evening, 
and  on  the  following  Sunday  funeral  services  were 
held  in  all  the  churches  in  the  land,  and  every 
church  was  draped  in  mourning." 

The  death  of  Mr.  Lincoln  was  an  indescribable 
shock  to  his  fellow  countrymen.  The  exultation  of 
victory  over  the  final  and  successful  triumph  of 
Union  arms  was  suddenly  changed  to  the  lamenta 
tions  of  grief.  In  every  household  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land  there  was  a  dull  and 
bitter  agony  as  the  telegraph  bore  tidings  of  the 
awful  deed.  The  public  heart,  filled  with  joy  over 
the  news  from  Appomattox,  now  sank  low  with  a 
sacred  terror  as  the  sad  tidings  from  the  Capitol 
came  in.  In  the  great  cities  of  the  land  all  busi 
ness  instantly  ceased.  Flags  drooped  half-mast 
from  every  winged  messenger  of  the  sea,  from  every 
church  spire,  and  from  every  public  building. 
Thousands  upon  thousands,  drawn  by  a  common 
feeling,  crowded  around  every  place  of  public  resort 
and  listened  eagerly  to  whatever  any  public  speaker 
42 


280  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

chose  to  say.  Men  met  in  the  streets  and  pressed 
each  other's  hands  in  silence,  and  burst  into  tears. 
The  whole  nation,  which  the  previous  day  had  been 
jubilant  and  hopeful,  was  precipitated  into  the 
depths  of  a  profound  and  tender  woe.  It  was  a 
memorable  spectacle  to  the  world — a  whole  nation 
plunged  into  heartfelt  grief  and  the  deepest  sorrow. 
The  body  of  the  dead  President,  having  been  em 
balmed,  was  removed  from  the  house  in  which  the 
death  occurred  to  the  White  House,  and  there  appro 
priate  funeral  services  were  held.  After  the  transfer 
of  the  remains  to  the  Capitol,  where  the  body  was  ex 
posed  to  view  in  the  Rotunda  for  a  day,  preparations 
were  made  for  the  journey  to  the  home  of  the  de 
ceased  in  Illinois.  On  the  following  day  (April 
21)  the  funeral  train  left  Washington  amid  the  si 
lent  grief  of  the  thousands  who  had  gathered  to  wit 
ness  its  departure.  At  all  the  great  cities  along  the 
route  stops  were  made,  and  an  opportunity  was 
given  the  people  to  look  on  the  face  of  the  illustrious 
dead.  The  passage  of  this  funeral  train  westward 
through  country,  village,  and  city,  winding  across 
the  territory  of  vast  States,  along  a  track  of  more 
than  fifteen  hundred  miles,. was  a  pageant  without  a 
parallel  in  the  history  of  the  continent  or  the  world. 
At  every  halt  in  the  sombre  march  vast  crowds,  such 
as  never  before  had  collected  together,  filed  past  the 
catafalque  for  a  glimpse  of  the  dead  chieftain's  face. 
Farmers  left  their  farms,  workmen  left  their  shops, 
societies  and  soldiers  marched  in  solid  columns, 
and  the  great  cities  poured  forth  their  population 
in  countless  masses.  From  Washington  the  funeral 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  28 1 

train  moved  to  Baltimore,  thence  to  Harrisburg, 
Philadelphia,  New  York,  Albany,  Buffalo,  Cleve- 
land,  Columbus,  Indianapolis,  Chicago,  and  at  last 
to  Springfield. 

As  the  funeral  cortege  passed  through  New  York 
it  was  reverently  gazed  upon  by  a  mass  of  humanity 
impossible  to  enumerate.  No  ovation  could  be  so 
eloquent  as  the  spectacle  of  the  vast  population, 
hushed  and  bareheaded  under  the  bright  spring 
sky,  gazing  upon  his  coffin.  Lincoln's  own  words 
over  the  dead  at  Gettysburg  came  to  many  as  the 
stately  car  went  by :  "  The  world  will  little  note 
nor  long  remember  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can 
never  forget  what  they  did  here." 

It  was  remembered,  too,  that  on  the  22d  of  Feb 
ruary,  1 86 1,  as  he  raised  the  American  flag  over 
Independence  Hall,  in  Philadelphia,  he  spoke  of 
the  sentiment  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
which  gave  liberty  not  only  to  this  country,  but,  "  I 
hope,"  he  said,  "  to  the  world  for  all  future  time. 
But  if  this  country  cannot  be  saved  without  giving 
up  that  principle,  I  was  about  to  say  I  would  rather 
be  assassinated  upon  this  spot  than  surrender  it." 

When  he  died  the  veil  that  hid  his  greatness  was 
torn  aside,  and  the  country  then  knew  what  it  had 
possesssed  and  lost  in  him.  A  New  York  paper,  of 
April  29,  1865,  said:  "No  one  who  personally  knew 
him  but  will  now  feel  that  the  deep,  furrowed  sad 
ness  of  his  face  seemed  to  forecast  his  fate.  The 
genial  gentleness  of  his  manner,  his  homely  simplic 
ity,  the  cheerful  humor  that  never  failed,  are  now 
seen  to  have  been  but  the  tender  light  that  played 


282  THE  LIFE  Of  LINCOLN. 

around  the  rugged  heights  of  his  strong  and  noble 
nature.  It  is  small  consolation  that  he  died  at  the 
moment  of  the  war  when  he  could  best  be  spared, 
for  no  nation  is  ever  ready  for  the  loss  of  such  a 
friend.  But  it  is  something  to  remember  that  he 
lived  to  see  the  slow  day  breaking.  Like  Moses,  he 
had  marched  with  us  through  the  wilderness. 
From  the  height  of  patriotic  vision  he  beheld  the 
golden  fields  of  the  future  waving  in  peace  and 
plenty.  He  beheld,  and  blessed  God,  but  was  not 
to  enter  in." 

In  a  discourse  delivered  on  Lincoln  on  the  23d  of 
that  month,  Henry  Ward  Beecher  said: 

"And  now  the  martyr  is  moving  in  triumphal 
march,  mightier  than  when  alive.  The  nation  rises 
up  at  every  stage  of  his  coming.  Cities  and  states 
are  his  pall-bearers,  and  the  cannon  speaks  the  hours 
with  solemn  progression.  Dead,  dead,  dead,  he  yet 
speaketh.  Is  Washington  dead  ?  Is  Hampden 
dead  ?  Is  any  man  that  was  ever  fit  to  live  dead  ? 
Disenthralled  of  flesh,  risen  to  the  unobstructed 
sphere  where  passion  never  comes,  he  begins  his 
illimitable  work.  His  life  is  now  grafted  upon  the 
infinite,  and  will  be  fruitful  as  no  earthly  life  can 
be.  Pass  on,  thou  that  hast  overcome.  Ye  people, 
behold  the  martyr  whose  blood,  as  so  many  articu 
late  words,  pleads  for  fidelity,  for  law,  for  liberty." 

The  funeral  train  reached  Springfield  on  the  3d 
of  May.  The  casket  was  borne  to  the  State  House 
and  placed  in  Representative  Hall — the  very  cham 
ber  in  which  in  1854  the  deceased  had  pronounced 
that  fearful  invective  against  the  sin  of  human 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  283 

slavery.  The  doors  were  thrown  open,  the  coffin 
lid  was  removed,  and  we  who  had  known  the  illus 
trious  dead  in  other  days,  and  before  the  nation  lay 
its  claim  upon  him,  moved  sadly  through  and 
looked  for  the  last  time  on  the  silent,  upturned  face 
of  our  departed  friend.  All  day  long  and  through 
the  night  a  stream  of  people  filed  reverently  by 
the  catafalque.  Some  of  them  were  his  colleagues 
at  the  bar ;  some  his  old  friends  from  New  Salem  ; 
some  crippled  soldiers  fresh  from  the  battle-fields 
of  the  war ;  and  some  were  little  children  who,  scarce 
realizing  the  impressiveness  of  the  scene,  were 
destined  to  live  and  tell  their  children  yet  to  be 
born  the  sad  story  of  Lincoln's  death. 

At  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  second  day, 
as  a  choir  of  two-hundred-and-fifty  voices  sang 
"  Peace,  Troubled  Soul,"  the  lid  of  the  casket  was  shut 
down  forever.  The  remains  were  borne  outside  and 
placed  in  a  hearse,  which  moved  at  the  head  of  a 
procession  in  charge  of  General  Joseph  Hooker  to 
Oak  Ridge  cemetery.  There  Bishop  Matthew 
Simpson  delivered  an  eloquent  and  impressive 
funeral  oration,  and  Rev.  Dr.  Gurley,  of  Washing 
ton,  offered  up  the  closing  prayer.  While  the  choir 
chanted  "  Unveil  Thy  Bosom,  Faithful  Tomb,"  the 
vault  door  opened  and  received  to  its  final  rest  all 
that  was  mortal  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

"  It  was  soon  known  that  the  murder  of  Lincoln 
was  one  result  of  a  conspiracy  which  had  for  its 
victims  Secretary  Seward  and  probably  Vice-Presi 
dent  Johnson,  Secretary  Stanton,  General  Grant, 
and  perhaps  others.  Booth  had  left  a  card  for  M? 


284  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN, 

Johnson  the  day  before,  possibly  with  the  intention 
of  killing  him.  Mr.  Seward  received  wounds,  from 
which  he  soon  recovered.  Grant,  who  was  to  have 
accompanied  Lincoln  to  the  theatre  on  the  night  of 
the  assassination,  and  did  not,  escaped  unassailed. 
The  general  conspiracy  was  poorly  planned  and 
lamely  executed.  It  involved  about  twenty-five 
persons.  Mrs.  Surratt,  David  C.  Harold,  Lewis 
Payne,  Edward  Spangler,  Michael  O'Loughlin,  J. 
W.  Atzerodt,  Samuel  Arnold,  and  Dr.  Samuel 
Mudd,  who  set  Booth's  leg,  which  was  dislocated 
by  the  fall  from  the  stage-box,  were  among  the 
number  captured  and  tried. 

"  After  the  assassination  Booth  escaped  unmo 
lested  from  the  theatre,  mounted  his  horse,  and 
rode  away,  accompanied  by  Harold,  into  Maryland. 
Cavalrymen  scoured  the  country,  and  eleven  days 
after  the  shooting  discovered  them  in  a  barn  on 
Garrett's  farm,  near  Port  Royal  on  the  Rappa- 
hannock.  The  soldiers  surrounded  the  barn  and 
demanded  a  surrender.  After  the  second  demand 
Harold  surrendered,  under  a  shower  of  curses  from 
Booth,  but  Booth  refused,  declaring  that  he  would 
never  be  taken  alive.  The  captain  of  the  squad 
then  fired  the  barn.  A  correspondent  thus  describes 
the  scene : 

"  '  The  blaze  lit  up  the  recesses  of  the  great  barn 
till  every  wasp's  nest  and  cobweb  in  the  roof  were 
luminous,  flinging  streaks  of  red  and  violet  across 
the  tumbled  farm  gear  in  the  corner.  They  tinged 
the  beams,  the  upright  columns,  the  barricades, 
where  clover  and  timothy  piled  high  held  toward 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  285 

the  hot  incendiary  their  separate  straws  for  the 
funeral  pile.  They  bathed  the  murderer's  retreat  in 
a  beautiful  illumination,  and,  while  in  bold  outlines 
his  figure  stood  revealed,  they  rose  like  an  impene 
trable  wall  to  guard  from  sight  the  hated  enemy 
who  lit  them.  Behind  the  blaze,  with  his  eye  to  a 
crack,  Colonel  Conger  saw  Wilkes  Booth  standing 
upright  upon  a  crutch.  At  the  gleam  of  fire  Booth 
dropped  his  crutch  and  carbine,  and  on  both  hands 
crept  up  to  the  spot  to  espy  the  incendiary  and 
shoot  him  dead.  His  eyes  were  lustrous  with  fever, 
and  swelled  and  rolled  in  terrible  beauty,  while  his 
teeth  were  fixed,  and  he  wore  the  expression  of  one 
in  the  calmness  before  frenzy.  In  vain  he  peered, 
with  vengeance  in  his  look  ;  the  blaze  that  made 
him  visible  concealed  his  enemy.  A  second  he 
turned  glaring  at  the  fire,  as  if  to  leap  upon  it  and 
extinguish  it,  but  it  had  made  such  headway  that 
he  dismissed  the  thought.  As  calmly  as  upon  the 
battle-field  a  veteran  stands  amidst  the  hail  of  ball 
and  shell  and  plunging  iron,  Booth  turned  and 
pushed  for  the  door,  carbine  in  poise,  and  the  last 
resolve  of  death,  which  we  name  despair,  set  on  his 
high,  bloodless  forehead. 

"  '  Just  then  Sergeant  Boston  Corbett  fired  through 
a  crevice  and  shot  Booth  in  the  neck.  He  was 
carried  out  of  the  barn  and  laid  upon  the  grass,  and 
there  died  about  four  hours  afterward.  Before  his 
misguided  soul  passed  into  the  silence  of  death  he 
whispered  something  which  Lieutenant  Baker  bent 
down  to  hear.  "  Tell  mother  I  die  for  my  country," 
he  said,  faintly.  Reviving  a  moment  later  he  re 


286  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

peated  the  words,  and  added,  "  I  thought  I  did  for 
the  best." 

"  His  days  of  hiding  and  fleeing  from  his  pursuers 
had  left  him  pale,  haggard,  dirty,  and  unkempt. 
He  had  cut  off  his  mustache  and  cropped  his  hair 
close  to  his  head,  and  he  and  Harold  both  wore  the 
Confederate  gray  uniform.' 

"  Booth's  body  was  taken  to  Washington,  and  a 
post  mortem  examination  of  it  held  on  board  the 
monitor  "  Montauk,"  and  on  the  night  of  the  27th  of 
April  it  was  given  in  charge  of  two  men  in  a  row- 
boat,  who,  it  is  claimed,  disposed  of  it  in  secrecy — 
how,  none  but  themselves  know.  Numerous  stories 
have  been  told  of  the  final  resting-place  of  that 
hated  dead  man.  Whoever  knows  the  truth  of  it 
tells  it  not. 

"  Sergeant  Corbett,  who  shot  Booth,  fired  with 
out  orders.  The  last  instructions  given  by  Colonel 
Baker  to  Colonel  Conger  and  Lieutenant  Baker 
were :  '  Don't  shoot  Booth,  but  take  him  alive.* 
Corbett  was  something  of  a  fanatic,  and  for  a 
breach  of  discipline  had  once  been  court-martialled 
and  sentenced  to  be  shot.  The  order,  however, 
was  not  executed,  but  he  had  been  drummed  out 
of  the  regiment.  He  belonged  to  Company  L  of 
the  Sixteenth  New  York  Cavalry.  He  was  Eng 
lish  by  birth,  but  was  brought  up  in  this  country, 
and  learned  the  trade  of  hat  finisher.  While  living 
in  Boston  he  joined  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church.  Never  having  been  baptized,  he  was  at  a 
loss  to  know  what  name  to  adopt,  but  after  making 
it  a  subject  of  prayer  he  took  the  name  of  Boston, 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  287 

in  honor  of  the  place  of  his  conversion.  He  was 
ever  undisciplined  and  erratic.  He  is  said  to  be 
living  in  Kansas,  and  draws  a  pension  from  the  Gov 
ernment. 

"  Five  of  the  conspirators  were  tried,  and  four, 
Payne,  Harold,  Atzerodt  and  Mrs.  Surratt,  were 
hanged.  Dr.  Mudd  was  sent  to  the  Dry  Tortugas 
for  a  period  of  years,  and  there  did  such  good 
work  among  the  yellow-fever  sufferers  during  an 
epidemic  that  he  was  pardoned  and  returned  to 
this  country.  He  died  only  about  two  years  ago 
at  his  home  in  Maryland,  near  Washington.  John 
Surratt  fled  to  Italy,  and  there  entered  the  Papal 
guards.  He  was  discovered  by  Archbishop  Hughes, 
and  by  the  courtesy  of  the  Italian  government, 
though  the  extradition  laws  did  not  cover  his 
case,  was  delivered  over  to  the  United  States  for 
trial.  At  his  first  trial  the  jury  hung;  at  the 
second,  in  which  Edwards  Pierrepont  was  the 
Government  counsel,  Surratt  got  off  on  the  plea 
of  limitations.  He  undertook  to  lecture,  and  began 
at  Rockville,  Md.  The  Evening  Star,  of  Washing 
ton,  reported  the  lecture,  which  was  widely  copied, 
and  was  of  such  a  feeble  character  that  it  killed 
him  as  a  lecturer.  He  went  to  Baltimore,  where, 
it  is  said,  he  still  lives.  Spangler,  the  scene-shifter, 
who  was  an  accomplice  of  Booth,  was  sent  to  the 
Dry  Tortugas,  served  out  his  term  and  died  about 
ten  years  ago.  McLoughlin,  who  was  arrested 
because  of  his  acquaintance  with  tne  conspirators, 
was  sent  to  the  Dry  Tortugas  and  there  uied. 


288  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

11  Ford's  Theatre  was  never  played  in  after  that 
memorable  night.  Ten  or  twelve  days  after  the 
assassination  Ford  attempted  to  open  it,  but  Stan- 
ton  prevented  it,  and  the  Government  bought  the 
theatre  for  $100,000,  and  converted  it  into  a  medi 
cal  museum.  Ford  was  a  Southern  sympathizer. 
He  ran  two  theatres  until  four  years  ago,  one  in 
Washington  and  one  in  Baltimore.  Alison  Naylor, 
the  livery  man  who  let  Booth  have  his  horse,  still 
lives  in  Washington.  Major  Rathbone,  who  was  in 
the  box  with  Lincoln  when  he  was  shot,  died  within 
the  last  four  years.  Stewart,  the  man  who  jumped 
on  the  stage  to  follow  Booth,  and  announced  to  the 
audience  that  he  had  escaped  through  the  alley, 
died  lately.  Strange,  but  very  few  persons  can  now 
be  found  who  were  at  the  theatre  that  night. 
Laura  Keene  died  a  few  years  ago. 

"  Booth  the  assassin  was  the  third  son  of  the  emi 
nent  English  tragedian  Junius  Brutus  Booth,  and 
the  brother  of  the  equally  renowned  Edwin  Booth. 
He  was  only  twenty-six  years  old  when  he  figured 
as  the  chief  actor  in  this  horrible  drama.  He  be 
gan  his  dramatic  career  as  John  Wilkes,  and  as  a 
stock  actor  gained  a  fair  reputation,  but  had  not 
achieved  any  special  success.  He  had  played 
chiefly  in  the  South  and  West,  and  but  a  few  times 
in  New  York.  Some  time  before  the  assassination 
of  Lincoln  he  had  abandoned  his  profession  on 
account  of  a  bronchial  affection.  Those  who  knew 
him  and  saw  him  on  that  fatal  Friday  say  that  he 
was  restless,  like  one  who,  consciously  or  uncon 
sciously,  was  overshadowed  by  some  awful  fate. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  289 

He  knew  that  the  President  and  his  party  intended 
to  be  present  at  Ford's  theatre  in  the  evening,  and 
he  asked  an  acquaintance  if  he  should  attend  the 
performance,  remarking  that  if  he  did  he  would  see 
some  unusually  fine  acting.  He  was  a  handsome 
man.  His  eyes  were  large  and  dark,  his  hair  dark 
and  inclined  to  curl,  his  features  finely  moulded, 
his  form  tall,  and  his  address  pleasing." 

Frederick  Stone,  counsel  for  Harold  after  Booth's 
death,  is  authority  for  the  statement  that  the  occa 
sion  for  Lincoln's  assassination  was  the  sentiment 
expressed  by  the  President  in  a  speech  delivered 
from  the  steps  of  the  White  House  on  the  night  of 
April  1 1,  when  he  said:  "If  universal  amnesty  is 
granted  to  the  insurgents  I  cannot  see  how  I  can 
avoid  exacting  in  return  universal  suffrage,  or  at 
least  suffrage  on  the  basis  of  intelligence  and 
military  service."  Booth  was  standing  before  Mr. 
Lincoln  on  the  outskirts  of  the  crowd.  "  That 
means  nigger  citizenship,"  he  said  to  Harold  by 
his  side.  "  Now,  by  God  !  I'll  put  him  through." 
But  whatever  may  have  been  the  incentive,  Booth 
seemed  to  crave  the  reprehensible  fame  that 
attaches  to  a  bold  and  dramatically  wicked  deed. 
He  may,  it  is  true,  have  been  mentally  unhinged, 
but,  whether  sane  or  senseless,  he  made  for  him 
self  an  infamous  and  endless  notoriety  when  he 
murdered  the  patient,  forbearing  man  who  had 
directed  our  ship  of  state  through  the  most  tem 
pestuous  waters  it  ever  encountered. 

In  the  death  of  Lincoln  the  South,  prostrate  and 
bleeding,  lost  a  friend ;  and  his  unholy  taking-off 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

at  the  very  hour  of  the  assured  supremacy  of 
the  Union  cause  ran  the  iron  into  the  heart  of 
the  North.  His  sun  went  down  suddenly,  and 
whelmed  the  country  in  a  darkness  which  was  felt 
by  every  heart ;  but  far  up  the  clouds  sprang  apart, 
and  soon  the  golden  light,  flooding  the  heavens 
with  radiance,  illuminated  every  uncovered  brow 
with  the  hope  of  a  fair  to-morrow.  His  name  will 
ever  be  the  watchword  of  liberty.  His  work  is 
finished,  and  sealed  forever  with  the  veneration 
given  to  the  blood  of  martyrs.  Yesterday  a  man 
reviled  and  abused,  a  target  for  the  shafts  of  malice 
and  hatred :  to-day  an  apostle.  Yesterday  a 
power:  to-day  a  prestige,  sacred,  irresistible.  The 
life  and  the  tragic  death  of  Mr.  Lincoln  mark  an 
epoch  in  history  from  which  dates  the  unqualified 
annunciation  by  the  Amercan  people  of  the  great 
est  truth  in  the  bible  of  republicanism — the  very 
keystone  of  that  arch  of  human  rights  which  is  des 
tined  to  overshadow  and  remodel  every  government 
upon  the  earth.  The  glorious  brightness  of  that 
upper  world,  as  it  welcomed  his  faint  and  bleeding 
spirit,  broke  through  upon  the  earth  at  his  exit — it 
was  the  dawn  of  a  day  growing  brighter  as  the 
grand  army  of  freedom  follows  in  the  march  of 
time. 

Lincoln's  place  in  history  will  be  fixed — aside 
from  his  personal  characteristics — by  the  events 
and  results  of  the  war.  As  a  great  political  leader 
who  quelled  a  rebellion  of  eight  millions  of  people, 
liberated  four  millions  of  slaves,  and  demonstrated 
to  the  world  the  ability  of  the  people  to  maintain 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLtf.  2gl 

A  government  of  themselves,  by  themselves,  for 
themselves,  he  will  assuredly  occupy  no  insignificant 
place. 

To  accomplish  the  great  work  of  preserving  the 
Union  cost  the  land  a  great  price.  Generations  of 
Americans  yet  unborn,  and  humanity  everywhere, 
for  years  to  come  will  mourn  the  horrors  and  sacri 
fices  of  the  first  civil  war  in  the  United  States; 
but  above  the  blood  of  its  victims,  above  the  bones 
of  its  dead,  above  the  ashes  of  desolate  hearths,  will 
arise  the  colossal  figure  of  Abraham  Lincoln  as  the 
most  acceptable  sacrifice  offered  by  the  nineteenth 
century  in  expiation  of  the  great  crime  of  the  seven 
teenth.  Above  all  the  anguish  and  tears  of  that 
immense  hecatomb  will  appear  the  shade  of  Lin 
coln  as  the  symbol  of  hope  and  of  pardon. 

This  is  the  true  lesson  of  Lincoln's  life  :  real 
and  enduring  greatness,  that  will  survive  the  cor 
rosion  and  abrasion  of  time,  of  change,  and  of  pro 
gress,  must  rest  upon  character.  In  certain  brilliant 
and  what  is  understood  to  be  most  desirable  en 
dowments  how  many  Americans  have  surpassed 
him.  Yet  how  he  looms  above  them  all !  Not  elo 
quence,  nor  logic,  nor  grasp  of  thought ;  not  states 
manship,  nor  power  of  command,  nor  courage  ;  not 
any  nor  all  of  these  have  made  him  what  he  is, 
but  these,  in  the  degree  in  which  he  possessed  them, 
conjoined  to  those  qualities  comprised  in  the  term 
character,  have  given  him  his  fame — have  made  him 
for  all  time  to  come  the  great  American,  the  grand, 
central  figure  in  American — perhaps  the  world's — 
history. 


CHAPTER   XL* 

SOON  after  the  death  of  Mr.  Lincoln  Dr.  J.  G. 
Holland  came  out  to  Illinois  from  his  home  in  Mas 
sachusetts  to  gather  up  materials  for  a  life  of  the 
dead  President.  The  gentleman  spent  several  days 
with  me,  and  I  gave  him  all  the  assistance  that  lay 
in  my  power.  I  was  much  pleased  with  him,  and 
awaited  with  not  a  little  interest  the  appearance  of 
his  book.  I  felt  sure  that  even  after  my  long  and 
intimate  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Lincoln  I  never  fully 
knew  and  understood  him,  and  I  therefore  wondered 
what  sort  of  a  description  Dr.  Holland,  after  inter 
viewing  Lincoln's  old-time  friends,  would  make  of  his 
individual  characteristics.  When  the  book  appeared 
he  said  this:  "  The  writer  has  conversed  with  mul 
titudes  of  men  who  claimed  to  know  Mr.  Lincoln 
intimately  :  yet  there  are  not  two  of  the  whole 
number  who  agree  in  their  estimate  of  him.  The 
fact  was  that  he  rarely  showed  more  than  one 
aspect  of  himself  to  one  man.  He  opened  himself 
to  men  in  different  directions.  To  illustrate  the 
effect  of  the  peculiarity  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  intercourse 
with  men  it  may  be  said  that  men  who  knew  him 
through  all  his  professional  and  political  life  offered 
opinions  as  diametrically  opposite  to  these,  viz. : 
that  he  was  a  very  ambitious  man,  and  that  he  was 

*  The  substance  of  this  chapter  I  delivered  in  the  form  of  a  lecture 
to  a  Springfield  audience  in  1866.  W.  H.  H. 

292 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 


293 


without  a  particle  of  ambition ;  that  he  was  one  of 
the  saddest  men  that  ever  lived,  and  that  he  was 
one  of  the  jolliest  men  that  ever  lived  ;  that  he 
was  very  religious,  but  that  he  was  not  a  Christian  ; 
that  he  was  a  Christian,  but  did  not  know  it ;  that 
he  was  so  far  from  being  a  religious  man  or  a  Chris 
tian  that  '  the  less  said  upon  that  subject  the  better  ;' 
that  he  was  the  most  cunning  man  in  America,  and 
that  he  had  not  a  particle  of  cunning  in  him  ;  that 
he  had  the  strongest  personal  attachments,  and  that 
he  had  no  personal  attachments  at  all — only  a 
general  good  feeling  towards  everybody  ;  that  he 
was  a  man  of  indomitable  will,  and  that  he  was  a 
man  almost  without  a  will ;  that  he  was  a  tyrant,  and 
that  he  was  the  softest-hearted,  most  brotherly  man 
that  ever  lived  ;  that  he  was  remarkable  for  his 
pure-mindedness,  and  that  he  was  the  foulest  in  his 
jests  and  stories  of  any  man  in  the  country;  that 
he  was  a  witty  man,  and  that  he  was  only  a  retailer 
of  the  wit  of  others  ;  that  his  apparent  candor  and 
fairness  were  only  apparent,  and  that  they  were  as 
real  as  his  head  and  his  hands;  that  he  was  a  boor, 
and  that  he  was  in  all  respects  a  gentleman  ;  that  he 
was  a  leader  of  the  people,  and  that  he  was  always 
led  by  the  people ;  that  he  was  cool  and  impassive, 
and  that  he  was  susceptible  of  the  strongest  passions. 
It  is  only  by  tracing  these  separate  streams  of  impres 
sion  back  to  their  fountain  that  we  are  able  to  arrive 
at  anything  like  a  competent  comprehension  of  the 
man,  or  to  learn  why  he  came  to  be  held  in  such  vari 
ous  estimation.  Men  caught  only  separate  aspects 
of  his  character — only  the  fragments  that  were  called 
into  exhibition  by  their  own  qualities." 


294  THE  LIF&  OF  LINCOLN. 

Dr.  Holland  had  only  found  what  Lincoln's 
friends  had  always  experienced  in  their  relations 
with  him — that  he  was  a  man  of  many  moods  and 
many  sides.  He  never  revealed  himself  entirely  to 
any  one  man,  and  therefore  he  will  always  to  a 
certain  extent  remain  enveloped  in  doubt.  Even 
those  who  were  with  him  through  long  years  of 
hard  study  and  under  constantly  varying  circum 
stances  can  hardly  say  they  knew  him  through  and 
through.  I  always  believed  I  could  read  him  as 
thoroughly  as  any  man,  and  yet  he  was  so  different 
in  many  respects  from  any  other  one  I  ever  met  be 
fore  or  since  his  time  that  I  cannot  say  I  compre 
hended  him.  In  this  chapter  I  give  my  recollection 
of  his  individual  characteristics  as  they  occur  to  me, 
and  allow  the  world  to  form  its  own  opinion.  If  my 
recollection  of  the  man  destroys  any  other  person's 
ideal,  I  cannot  help  it.  By  a  faithful  and  lifelike 
description  of  Lincoln  the  man,  and  a  study  of  his 
peculiar  and  personal  traits,  perhaps  some  of  the 
apparent  contradictions  met  with  by  Dr.  Holland 
will  have  melted  from  sight. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  six  feet  four  inches  high,  and 
when  he  left  the  city  of  his  home  for  Washington 
was  fifty-one  years  old,  having  good  health  and  no 
gray  hairs,  or  but  few,  on  his  head.  He  was  thin, 
wiry,  sinewy,  raw-boned  ;  thin  through  the  breast 
to  the  back,  and  narrow  across  the  shoulders; 
standing  he  leaned  forward — was  what  may  be 
called  stoop-shouldered,  inclining  to  the  consump 
tive  by  build.  His  usual  weight  was  one  hun 
dred  and  eighty  pounds.  His  organization — 
rather  his  structure  and  functions — worked  slowly. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  295 

His  blood  had  to  run  a  long  distance  from  his  heart 
to  the  extremities  of  his  frame,  and  his  nerve  force 
had  to  travel  through  dry  ground  a  long  distance 
before  his  muscles  were  obedient  to  his  will.  His 
structure  was  loose  and  leathery ;  his  body  was 
shrunk  and  shrivelled  ;  he  had  dark  skin,  dark  hair, 
and  looked  woe-struck.  The  whole  man,  body  and 
mind,  worked  slowly,  as  if  it  needed  oiling.  Phys 
ically  he  was  a  very  powerful  man,  lifting  with  ease 
four  hundred,  and  in  one  case  six  hundred,  pounds. 
His  mind  was  like  his  body,  and  worked  slowly  but 
strongly.  Hence  there  was  very  little  bodily  or 
mental  wear  and  tear  in  him.  This  peculiarity  in 
his  construction  gave  him  great  advantage  over 
other  men  in  public  life.  No  man  in  America — 
scarcely  a  man  in  the  world — could  have  stood 
what  Lincoln  did  in  Washington  and  survived 
through  more  than  one  term  of  the  Presidency. 

When  he  walked  he  moved  cautiously  but  firmly ; 
his  long  arms  and  giant  hands  swung  down  by  his 
side.  He  walked  with  even  tread,  the  inner  sides 
of  his  feet  being  parallel.  He  put  the  whole  foot 
flat  down  on  the  ground  at  once,  not  landing  on 
the  heel ;  he  likewise  lifted  his  foot  all  at  once,  not 
rising  from  the  toe,  and  hence  he  had  no  spring  to 
his  walk.  His  walk  was  undulatory — catching  and 
pocketing  tire,  weariness,  and  pain,  all  up  and  down 
his  person,  and  thus  preventing  them  from  locating. 
The  first  impression  of  a  stranger,  or  a  man  who  did 
not  observe  closely,  was  that  his  walk  implied 
shrewdness  and  cunning — that  he  was  a  tricky  man  ; 
but,  in  reality,  it  was  the  walk  of  caution  and  firm 
ness.  In  sitting  down  on  a  common  chair  he  was 
43 


296  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

no  taller  than  ordinary  men.  His  legs  and  arms  were 
abnormally,  unnaturally  long,  and  in  undue  propor 
tion  to  the  remainder  of  his  body.  It  was  only  when 
he  stood  up  that  he  loomed  above  other  men. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  head  was  long,  and  tall  from  the 
base  of  the  brain  and  from  the  eyebrows.  His 
head  ran  backwards,  his  forehead  rising  as  it  ran 
back  at  a  low  angle,  like  Clay's,  and  unlike  Web 
ster's,  which  was  almost  perpendicular.  The  size 
of  his  hat  measured  at  the  hatter's  block  was  seven 
and  one-eighth,  his  head  being,  from  ear  to  ear,  six 
and  one-half  inches,  and  from  the  front  to  the  back 
of  the  brain  eight  inches.  Thus  measured  it  was 
not  below  the  medium  size.  His  forehead  was  nar 
row  but  high  ;  his  hair  was  dark,  almost  black,  and 
lay  floating  where  his  fingers  or  the  winds  left  it, 
piled  up  at  random.  His  cheek-bones  were  high, 
sharp,  and  prominent  ;  his  jaws  were  long  and  up- 
curved  ;  his  nose  was  large,  long,  blunt,  and  a  little 
awry  towards  the  right  eye  ;  his  chin  was  sharp  and 
upcurved  ;  his  eyebrows  cropped  out  like  a  huge 
rock  on  the  brow  of  a  hill ;  his  long,  sallow  face  was 
wrinkled  and  dry,  with  a  hair  here  and  there  on  the 
surface ;  his  cheeks  were  leathery  ;  his  ears  were 
large,  and  ran  out  almost  at  right  angles  from  his 
head,  caused  partly  by  heavy  hats  and  partly  by 
nature  ;  his  lower  lip  was  thick,  hanging,  and  under- 
curved,  while  his  chin  reached  for  the  lip  upcurved  ; 
his  neck  was  neat  and  trim,  his  head  being  well 
balanced  on  it ;  there  was  the  lone  mole  on  the 
right  cheek,  and  Adam's  apple  on  his  throat. 

Thus  stood,  walked,  acted,  and  looked  Abraham 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  297 

Lincoln.  He  was  not  a  pretty  man  by  any  means, 
nor  was  he  an  ugly  one ;  he  was  a  homely  man, 
careless  of  his  looks,  plain-looking  and  plain-acting. 
He  had  no  pomp,  display,  or  dignity,  so-called, 
He  appeared  simple  in  his  carriage  and  bearing. 
He  was  a  sad-looking  man  ;  his  melancholy  dripped 
from  him  as  he  walked.  His  apparent  gloom  im 
pressed  his  friends,*  and  created  sympathy  for 
him — one  means  of  his  great  success.  He  was 

*  Lincoln's  melancholy  never  failed  to  impress  any  man  who  ever 
saw  or  knew  him.  The  perpetual  look  of  sadness  was  his  most 
prominent  feature.  The  cause  of  this  peculiar  condition  was  a  mat 
ter  of  frequent  discussion  among  his  friends.  John  T.  Stuart  said 
it  was  due  to  his  abnormal  digestion.  His  liver  failed  to  work  prop 
erly — did  not  secrete  bile — and  his  bowels  were  equally  as  inactive. 
"  I  used  to  advise  him  to  take  blue-mass  pills,"  related  Stuart,  "  and 
he  did  take  them  before  he  went  to  Washington,  and  for  five  months 
while  he  was  President,  but  when  I  came  on  to  Congress  he  told  me 
he  had  ceased  using  them  because  they  made  him  cross."  The 
reader'  can  hardly  realize  the  extent  of  this  peculiar  tendency  to 
gloom.  One  of  Lincoln's  colleagues  in  the  Legislature  of  Illinois  is 
authority  for  the  statement  coming  from  Lincoln  himself  that  this 
"  mental  depression  became  so  intense  at  times  he  never  dared  carry 
a  pocket  knife."  Two  things  greatly  intensified  his  characteristic 
sadness :  one  was  the  endless  succession  of  troubles  in  his  domestic 
life,  which  he  had  to  bear  in  silence ;  and  the  other  was  unquestionably 
the  knowledge  of  his  own  obscure  and  lowly  origin.  The  recollec 
tion  of  these  things  burned  a  deep  impress  on  his  sensitive  soul. 

As  to  the  cause  of  this  morbid  condition  my  idea  has  always  been 
that  it  was  occult,,  and  could  not  be  explained  by  any  course  of 
observation  and  reasoning.  It  was  ingrained,  and,  being  ingrained, 
could  not  be  reduced  to  rule,  or  the  cause  arrayed.  It  was  necessa 
rily  hereditary,  but  whether  it  came  down  from  a  long  line  of  ances 
tors  and  far  back,  or  was  simply  the  reproduction  of  the  saddened 
life  of  Nancy  Hanks,  cannot  well  be  determined.  At  any  rate  it  was 
part  of  his  nature,  and  could  no  more  be  shaken  off  than  he  could 
part  with  his  brains. 


298  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

gloomy,  abstracted,  and  joyous — rather  humorous — 
by  turns  ;  but  I  do  not  think  he  knew  what  real  joy 
was  for  many  years. 

Mr.  Lincoln  sometimes  walked  our  streets  cheer 
ily,  he  was  not  always  gloomy,  and  then  it  was  that 
on  meeting  a  friend  he  greeted  him  with  plain 
"  Howd'y?"  clasping  his  hand  in  both  of  his  own, 
and  gave  him  a  hearty  soul-welcome.  On  a  winter's 
morning  he  might  be  seen  stalking  towards  the 
market-house,  basket  on  arm,  his  old  gray  shawl 
wrapped  around  his  neck,  his  little  boy  Willie  or 
Tad  running  along  at  his  heels  asking  a  thousand 
boyish  questions,  which  his  father,  in  deep  abstrac 
tion,  neither  heeded  nor  heard.*  If  a  friend  met  or 

*  "  I  lived  next  door  to  the  Lincolns  for  many  years,  knew  the 
family  well.  Mr.  Lincoln  used  to  come  to  our  house,  his  feet 
encased  in  a  pair  of  loose  slippers,  and  with  an  old,  faded  pair  of 
trousers  fastened  with  one  suspender.  He  frequently  came  to  our 
house  for  milk.  Our  rooms  were  low,  and  he  said  one  day,  '  Jim, 
you'll  have  to  lift  your  loft  a  little  higher ;  I  can't  straighten  out 
under  it  very  well.'  To  my  wife,  who  was  short  of  stature,  he  used 
to  say  that  little  people  had  some  advantages :  they  required  less 
1  wood  and  wool  to  make  them  comfortable.'  In  his  yard  Lincoln 
had  but  little  shrubbery.  He  once  planted  some  rose  bushes,  t<t 
which  he  called  my  attention,  but  soon  neglected  them  altogether. 
He  never  planted  any  vines  or  fruit  trees,  seemed  to  have  no  fond 
ness  for  such  things.  At  one  time,  yielding  to  my  suggestion,  he 
undertook  to  keep  a  garden  in  the  rear  part  of  his  yard,  but  one 
season's  experience  sufficed  to  cure  him  of  all  desire  for  another. 
He  kept  his  own  horse,  fed  and  curried  it  when  at  home;  he  also 
fed  and  milked  his  own  cow,  and  sawed  his  own  wood.  Mr.  Lincoln 
and  his  wife  agreed  moderately  well.  Frequently  Mrs.  Lincoln's 
temper  would  get  the  better  of  her.  If  she  became  furious,  as  she 
often  did,  her  husband  tried  to  pay  no  attention  to  her.  He  would 
sometimes  laugh  at  her,  but  generally  he  would  pick  up  one  of  the 
children  and  walk  off.  I  have  heard  her  say  that  if  Mr.  Lincoln 


THE  LfFE  OF  LINCOLN.  299 

passed  him,  and  he  awoke  from  his  reverie,  some- 
thing  would  remind  him  of  a  story  he  had  heard  in 
Indiana,  and  tell  it  he  would,  and  there  was  no 
alternative  but  to  listen. 

Thus,  I  repeat,  stood  and  walked  and  talked  this 
singular  man.  He  was  odd,  but  when  that  gray 
eye  and  that  face  and  those  features  were  lit  up  by 
the  inward  soul  in  fires  of  emotion,  then  it  was  that 
all  those  apparently  ugly  features  sprang  into 
organs  of  beauty  or  disappeared  in  the  sea  of  in 
spiration  that  often  flooded  his  face.  Sometimes 
it  appeared  as  if  Lincoln's  soul  was  fresh  from  its 
Creator. 

I  have  asked  the  friends  and  foes  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
alike  what  they  thought  of  his  perceptions.  One 
gentleman  of  unquestioned  ability  and  free  from  all 
partiality  or  prejudice  said,  "  Mr.  Lincoln's  percep 
tions  were  slow,  a  little  perverted,  if  not  somewhat 
distorted  and  diseased."  If  the  meaning  of  this  is 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  saw  things  from  a  peculiar  angle 
of  his  being,  and  from  this  was  susceptible  to 
nature's  impulses,  and  that  he  so  expressed  him 
self,  then  I  have  no  objection  to  what  is  said. 

had  remained  at  home  more  she  could  have  loved  him  better.  One 
day  while  Mr.  Lincoln  was  absent — he  had  gone  to  Chicago  to  try  a 
suit  in  the  United  States  Court — his  wife  and  I  formed  a  conspiracy 
to  take  off  the  roof  and  raise  his  house.  It  was  originally  a  frame 
structure  one  story  and  a  half  high.  When  Lincoln  returned  he  met 
a  gentleman  on  the  sidewalk  and,  looking  at  his  own  house  and 
manifesting  great  surprise,  inquired :  '  Stranger,  can  you  tell  me 
where  Lincoln  lives  ? '  The  gentleman  gave  him  the  necessary 
information,  and  Lincoln  gravely  entered  his  own  premises." — State 
ment,  James  Gourly,  February  9,  1866. 


300  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

Otherwise  I  dissent.  Mr.  Lincoln's  perceptions 
were  slow,  cold,  clear,  and  exact.  Everything  came 
to  him  in  its  precise  shape  and  color.  To  some 
men  the  world  of  matter  and  of  man  comes  orna 
mented  with  beauty,  life,  and  action  ;  and  hence 
more  or  less  false  and  inexact.  No  lurking  illusion 
*or  other  error,  false  in  itself  and  clad  for  the 
moment  in  robes  of  splendor,  ever  passed  unde 
tected  or  unchallenged  over  the  threshold  of  his 
mind — that  point  which  divides  vision  from  the 
realm  and  home  of  thought.  Names  to  him  were 
nothing,  and  titles  naught — assumption  always 
standing  back  abashed  at  his  cold,  intellectual 
glare.  Neither  his  perceptions  nor  intellectual  vis 
ion  were  perverted,  distorted,  or  diseased.  He  saw 
all  things  through  a  perfect  mental  lens.  There 
was  no  diffraction  or  refraction  there.  He  was  not 
impulsive,  fanciful,  or  imaginative  ;  but  cold,  calm, 
and  precise.  He  threw  his  whole  mental  light 
around  the  object,  and,  after  a  time,  substance  and 
quality  stood  apart,  form  and  color  took  their  appro 
priate  places,  and  all  was  clear  and  exact  in  his 
mind.  His  fault,  if  any,  was  that  he  saw  things 
less  than  they  really  were  ;  less  beautiful  and  more 
frigid.  He  crushed  the  unreal,  the  inexact,  the 
hollow,  and  the  sham.  He  saw  things  in  rigidity 
rather  than  in  vital  action.  He  saw  what  no  man 
could  dispute,  but  he  failed  to' see  what  might  have 
been  seen. 

To  some  minds  the  world  is  all  life,  a  soul  be 
neath  the  material ;  but  to  Mr.  Lincoln  no  life  was 
individual  that  did  not  manifest  itself  to  him.  His 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  30! 

mind  was  his  standard.  His  mental  action  was 
deliberate,  and  he  was  pitiless  and  persistent  in  pur 
suit  of  the  truth.  No  error  went  undetected,  no 
falsehood  unexposed,  if  he  once  was  aroused  in 
search  of  the  truth.  The  true  peculiarity  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  has  not  been  seen  by  his  various  biog 
raphers;  or,  if  seen,  they  have  failed  wofully  to 
give  it  that  importance  which  it  deserves.  Newton 
beheld  the  law  of  the  universe  in  the  fall  of  an 
apple  from  a  tree  to  the  ground  ;  Owen  saw  the 
animal  in  its  claw ;  Spencer  saw  evolution  in  the 
growth  of  a  seed ;  and  Shakespeare  saw  human 
nature  in  the  laugh  of  a  man.  Nature  was  sugges 
tive  to  all  these  men.  Mr.  Lincoln  no  less  saw 
philosophy  in  a  story  and  an  object  lesson  in  a  joke. 
His  was  a  new  and  original  position,  one  which  was 
always  suggesting  something  to  him.  The  world 
and  man,  principles  and  facts,  all  were  full  of  sug 
gestions  to  his  susceptible  soul.  They  continually 
put  him  in  mind  of  something.  His  ideas  were  odd 
and  original  for  the  reason  that  he  was  a  peculiar 
and  original  creation  himself. 

His  power  in  the  association  of  ideas  was  as  great 
as  his  memory  was  tenacious  and  strong.  His 
language  indicated  oddity  and  originality  of  vision 
as  well  as  expression.  Words  and  language  are  but 
the  counterparts  of  the  idea — the  other  half  of  the 
idea  ;  they  are  but  the  stinging,  hot,  leaden  bullets 
that  drop  from  the  mould  ;  in  a  rifle,  with  powder 
stuffed  behind  them  and  fire  applied,  they  are  an 
embodied  force  resistlessly  pursuing  their  object. 
In  the  search  for  words  Mr.  Lincoln  was  often  at  a 


302  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

loss.  He  was  often  perplexed  to  give  proper  expres 
sion  to  his  ideas ;  first,  because  he  was  not  master  of 
the  English  language  ;  and  secondly,  because  there 
were,  in  the  vast  store  of  words,  so  few  that  con 
tained  the  exact  coloring,  power,  and  shape  of  his 
ideas.  This  will  account  for  the  frequent  resort  by 
him  to  the  use  of  stories,  maxims,  and  jokes  in 
which  to  clothe  his  ideas,  that  they  might  be  com 
prehended.  So  true  was  this  peculiar  mental  vision 
of  his  that,  though  mankind  has  been  gathering, 
arranging,  and  classifying  facts  for  thousands  of 
years,  Lincoln's  peculiar  standpoint  could  give  him 
no  advantage  over  other  men's  labor.  Hence  he  tore 
down  to  their  deepest  foundations  all  arrangements 
of  facts,  and  constructed  new  ones  to  govern  him 
self.  He  was  compelled  from  his  peculiar  mental 
organization  to  do  this.  His  labor  was  great  and 
continuous. 

The  truth  about  Mr.  Lincoln  is  that  he  read  less 
and  thought  more  than  any  man  in  his  sphere  in 
America.  No  man  can  put  his  finger  on  any  great 
book  written  in  the  last  or  present  century  that  he 
read  thoroughly.  When  young  he  read  the  Bible, 
and  when  of  age  he  read  Shakespeare  ;  but,  though 
he  often  quoted  from  both,  he  never  read  either 
one  through.  He  is  acknowledged  now  to  have 
been  a  great  man,  but  the  question  is  what  made 
him  great.  I  repeat,  that  he  read  less  and  thought 
more  than  any  man  of  his  standing  in  America,  if 
not  in  the  world.  He  possessed  originality  and 
power  of  thought  in  an  eminent  degree.  Besides 
his  well  established  reputation  for  caution,  he  was 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN,  303 

concentrated  in  his  thoughts  and  had  great  conti 
nuity  of  reflection.  In  everything  he  was  patient 
and  enduring.  These  are  some  of  the  grounds  of 
his  wonderful  success. 

Not  only  were  nature,  man,  and  principle  sug 
gestive  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  not  only  had  he  accurate 
and  exact  perceptions,  but  he  was  causative ;  his 
mind,  apparently  with  an  automatic  movement,  ran 
back  behind  facts,  principles,  and  all  things  to  their 
origin  and  first  cause — to  that  point  where  forces 
act  at  once  as  effect  and  cause.  He  would  stop  in 
the  street  and  analyze  a  machine.  He  would  whit 
tle  a  thing  to  a  point,  and  then  count  the  number 
less  inclined  planes  and  their  pitch  making  the 
the  point.  Mastering  and  defining  this,  he  would 
then  cut  that  point  back  and  get  a  broad  transverse 
section  of  his  pine-stick,  and  peel  and  define  that. 
Clocks,  omnibuses,  language,  paddle-wheels,  and 
idioms  never  escaped  his  observation  and  analysis. 
Before  he  could  form  an  idea  of  anything,  before 
he  would  express  his  opinion  on  a  subject,  he  must 
know  its  origin  and  history  in  substance  and  qual 
ity,  in  magnitude  and  gravity.  He  must  know  it 
inside  and  outside,  upside  and  downside.  He 
searched  and  comprehended  his  own  mind  and 
nature  thoroughly,  as  I  have  often  heard  him 
say.  He  must  analyze  a  sensation,  an  idea,  and 
run  back  in  its  history  to  its  origin,  and  purpose. 
He  was  remorseless  in  his  analysis  of  facts  and 
principles.  When  all  these  exhaustive  processes  had 
been  gone  through  with  he  could  form  an  idea  and 


304  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

express  it;  but  no  sooner.  He  had  no  faith,  and 
no  respect  for  "  say  so's,"  come  though  they  might 
from  tradition  or  authority.  Thus  everything  had 
to  run  through  the  crucible,  and  be  tested  by 
the  fires  of  his  analytic  mind  ;  and  when  at  last 
he  did  speak,  his  utterances  rang  out  with  the  clear 
and  keen  ring  of  gold  upon  the  counters  of  the  un 
derstanding.  He  reasoned  logically  through  anal 
ogy  and  comparison.  All  opponents  dreaded  his 
originality  of  idea,  his  condensation,  definition,  and 
force  of  expression ;  and  woe  be  to  the  man  who 
hugged  to  his  bosom  a  secret  error  if  Lincoln  got 
on  the  chase  of  it.  I  repeat,  woe  to  him  !  Time 
could  hide  the  error  in  no  nook  or  corner  of  space 
in  which  he  would  not  detect  and  expose  it. 

Though  gifted  with  accurate  and  acute  percep 
tion,  though  a  profound  thinker  as  well  as  analyzer, 
still  Lincoln's  judgment  on  many  and  minor  mat 
ters  was  oftentimes  childish.  By  the  word  judg 
ment  I  do  not  mean  what  mental  philosophers 
would  call  the  exercise  of  reason,  will — under 
standing;  but  I  use  the  term  in  its  popular  sense. 
I  refer  to  that  capacity  or  power  which  decides  on 
the  fitness,  the  harmony,  or,  if  you  will,  the  beauty 
and  appropriateness  of  things.  I  have  always 
thought,  and  sometimes  said,  Lincoln  lacked  this 
quality  in  his  mental  structure.  He  was  on  the 
alert  if  a  principle  was  involved  or  a  man's  rights  at 
stake  in  a  transaction  ;  but  he  never  could  see  the 
harm  in  wearing  a  sack-coat  instead  of  a  swallow 
tail  to  an  evening  party,  nor  could  he  realize  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  30$ 

offense  of  telling  a  vulgar  yarn  if  a  preacher  hap 
pened  to  be  present.* 

As  already  expressed,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  no  faith. 
In  order  to  believe,  he  must  see  and  feel,  and  thrust 
his  hand  into  the  place.  He  must  taste,  smell,  and 
handle  before  he  had  faith  or  even  belief.  Such  a 
mind  manifestly  must  have  its  time.  His  forte  and 
power  lay  in  digging  out  for  himself  and  securing 
for  his  mind  its  own  food,  to  be  assimilated  unto 
itself.  Thus,  in  time  he  would  form  opinions  and 
conclusions  that  no  human  power  could  overthrow. 
They  were  as  irresistible  as  the  rush  of  a  flood ;  as 
convincing  as  logic  embodied  in  mathematics.  And 
yet  the  question  arises :  "  Had  Mr.  Lincoln  great, 
good  common-sense  ?  "  A  variety  of  opinions  sug 
gest  themselves  in  answer  to  this.  If  the  true  test 

*  Sometime  in  1857  a  lady  reader  or  elocutionist  came  to  Spring 
field  and  gave  a  public  reading  in  a  hall  immediately  north  of  the 
State  House.  As  lady  lecturers  were  then  rare  birds,  a  very  large 
crowd  greeted  her.  Among  other  things  she  recited  "  Nothing  to 
Wear,"  a  piece  in  which  is  described  the  perplexities  that  beset 
"  Miss  Flora  McFlimsey  "  in  her  efforts  to  appear  fashionable.  In 
the  midst  of  one  stanza,  in  which  no  effort  is  made  to  say  anything 
particularly  amusing,  and  during  the  reading  of  which  the  audience 
manifested  the  most  respectful  silence  and  attention,  some  one  in  the 
rear  seats  burst  out  into  a  loud,  coarse  laugh — a  sudden  and  explo 
sive  guffaw.  It  startled  the  speaker  and  audience,  and  kindled  a 
storm  of  unsuppressed  laughter  and  applause.  Everyone  looked 
back  to  ascertain  the  cause  of  the  demonstration,  and  was  greatly 
surprised  to  find  that  it  was  Mr.  Lincoln.  He  blushed  and  squirmed 
with  the  awkward  diffidence  of  a  schoolboy.  What  prompted  him 
to  laugh  no  one  was  able  to  explain.  He  was  doubtless  wrapped  up 
in  a  brown  study,  and,  recalling  some  amusing  episode,  indulged  in 
laughter  without  realizing  his  surroundings.  The  experience  morti 
fied  him  greatly. 


3C>6  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

is  that  a  man  shall  judge  the  rush  and  whirl  of 
human  actions  and  transactions  as  wisely  and  accu 
rately  as  though  indefinite  time  and  proper  condi 
tions  were  at  his  disposal,  then  I  am  compelled  to 
follow  the  logic  of  things  and  admit  that  he  had  no 
great  stock  of  common-sense  ;  but  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  time  and  conditions  were  ripe,  his  com 
mon-sense  was  in  every  case  equal  to  the  emerg 
ency.  He  knew  himself,  and  never  trusted  his  dollar 
or  his  fame  in  casual  opinions — never  acted  hastily 
or  prematurely  on  great  matters. 

Mr.  Lincoln  believed  that  the  great  leading  law 
of  human  nature  is  motive.  He  reasoned  all 
ideas  of  a  disinterested  action  out  of  my  mind.  I 
used  to  hold  that  an  action  could  be  pure,  disinter 
ested,  and  wholly  free  from  selfishness ;  but  he  di 
vested  me  of  that  delusion.  His  idea  was  that  all 
human  actions  were  caused  by  motives,  and  that  at 
the  bottom  of  these  motives  was  self.  He  defied 
me  to  act  without  motive  and  unselfishly  ;  and  when 
I  did  the  act  and  told  him  of  it,  he  analyzed  and 
sifted  it  to  the  last  grain.  After  he  had  concluded, 
I  could  not  avoid  the  admission  that  he  had  demon 
strated  the  absolute  selfishness  of  the  entire  act. 
Although  a  profound  analyzer  of  the  laws  of  human 
nature  he  could  form  no  just  construction  of  the 
motives  of  the  particular  individual.  He  knew  but 
little  of  the  play  of  the  features  as  seen  in  the  "  hu 
man  face  divine."  He  could  not  distinguish  between 
the  paleness  of  anger  and  the  crimson  tint  of  mod 
esty.  In  determining  what  each  play  of  the  feat 
ures  indicated  he  was  pitiably  weak. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN-.  307 

The  great  predominating  elements  of  Mr.  Lin- 
pin's  peculiar  character  were :  first,  his  great 
capacity  and  power  of  reason  ;  second,  his  con 
science  and  his  excellent  understanding ;  third,  an 
exalted  idea  of  the  sense  of  right  and  equity ; 
fourth,  his  intense  veneration  of  the  true  and  the 
good.  His  conscience,  his  heart  and  all  the  facul 
ties  and  qualities  of  his  mind  bowed  submissively 
to  the  despotism  of  his  reason.  He  lived  and  acted 
from  the  standard  of  reason — that  throne  of  logic, 
home  of  principle — the  realm  of  Deity  in  man.  It 
is  from  this  point  Mr.  Lincoln  must  be  viewed. 
Not  only  was  he  cautious,  patient,  and  enduring ; 
not  only  had  he  concentration  and  great  continuity 
of  thought  ;  but  he  had  profound  analytical  power. 
His  vision  was  clear,  and  he  was  emphatically  the 
master  of  statement.  His  pursuit  of  the  truth,  as 
before  mentioned,  was  indefatigable.  He  reasoned 
from  well-chosen  principles  with  such  clearness, 
force,  and  directness  that  the  tallest  intellects  in  the 
land  bowed  to  him.  He  was  the  strongest  man  I 
ever  saw,  looking  at  him  from  the  elevated  stand 
point  of  reason  and  logic.  He  came  down  from 
that  height  with  irresistible  and  crashing  force. 
His  Cooper  Institute  and  other  printed  speeches 
will  prove  this ;  but  his  speeches  before  the  courts 
— especially  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois— if  they 
had  been  preserved,  would  demonstrate  it  still  more 
plainly.  Here  he  demanded  time  to  think  and  pre 
pare.  The  office  of  reason  is  to  determine  the  truth. 
Truth  is  the  power  of  reason,  and  Lincoln  loved 
truth  for  its  own  sake.  It  was  to  him  reason's  food. 


3C>8  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN'. 

Conscience,  the  second  great  quality  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coin's  character,  is  that  faculty  which  induces  in  us 
love  of  the  just.  Its  real  office  is  justice  ;  right 
and  equity  are  its  correlatives.  As  a  court,  it  is  in 
session  continuously  ;  it  decides  all  acts  at  all  times. 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  a  deep,  broad,  living  conscience. 
His  reason,  however,  was  the  real  judge  ;  it  told  him 
what  was  true  or  false,  and  therefore  good  or  bad, 
right  or  wrong,  just  or  unjust,  and  his  conscience 
echoed  back  the  decision.  His  conscience  ruled  his 
heart ;  he  was  always  just  before  he  was  generous. 
It  cannot  be  said  of  any  mortal  that  he  was  always 
absolutely  just.  Neither  was  Lincoln  always  just ; 
but  his  general  life  was.  It  follows  that  if  Mr.  Lin 
coln  had  great  reason  and  great  conscience  he  must 
have  been  an  honest  man  ;  and  so  he  was.  He  was 
rightfully  entitled  to  the  appellation  "Honest  Abe." 
Honesty  was  his  polar  star. 

Mr.  Lincoln  also  had  a  good  understanding ;  that 
is,  the  faculty  that  comprehends  the  exact  state  of 
things  and  determines  their  relations,  near  or  remote. 
The  understanding  does  not  necessarily  enquire  for 
the  reason  of  things.  While  Lincoln  was  odd  and 
original,  while  he  lived  out  of  himself  and  by  him 
self,  and  while  he  could  absorb  but  little  from 
others,  yet  a  reading  of  his  speeches,  messages,  and 
letters  satisfies  us  that  he  had  good  understanding. 
But  the  strongest  point  in  his  make-up  was  the 
knowledge  he  had  of  himself  ;  he  comprehended  and 
understood  his  own  capacity — what  he  did  and  why 
he  did  it — better  perhaps  than  any  man  of  his  day. 
He  had  a  wider  and  deeper  comprehension  of  his 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  309 

environments,  of  the  political  conditions  especially, 
than  men  who  were  more  learned  or  had  had  the 
benefits  of  a  more  thorough  training. 

He  was  a  very  sensitive  man, — modest  to  the 
point  of  diffidence, — and  often  hid  himself  in  the 
masses  to  prevent  the  discovery  of  his  identity. 
He  was  not  indifferent,  however,  to  approbation  and 
public  opinion.  He  had  no  disgusting  egotism  and 
no  pompous  pride,  no  aristocracy,  no  haughtiness, 
no  vanity.  Merging  together  the  qualities  of  his 
nature  he  was  a  meek,  quiet,  unobtrusive  gentle 
man. 

As  many  contradictory  opinions  prevail  in  refer 
ence  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  heart  and  humanity  as  on  the 
question  of  his  judgment.  As  many  persons  per 
haps  contend  that  he  was  cold  and  obdurate  as  that 
he  was  warm  and  affectionate.  The  first  thing  the 
world  met  in  contact  with  him  was  his  head  and 
conscience ;  after  that  he  exposed  the  tender  side 
of  his  nature — his  heart,  subject  at  all  times  to  his 
exalted  sense  of  right  and  equity,  namely  his  con 
science.  In  proportion  as  he  held  his  conscience 
subject  to  his  head,  he  held  his  heart  subject  to  his 
head  and  conscience.  His  humanity  had  to  defer 
to  his  sense  of  justice  and  the  eternal  right.  His 
heart  was  the  lowest  of  these  organs,  if  we  may  call 
them  such — the  weakest  of  the  three.  Some  men 
have  reversed  this  order  and  characterized  his  heart 
as  his  ruling  organ.  This  estimate  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
endows  him  with  love  regardless  of  truth,  justice, 
and  right.  The  question  still  is,  was  Lincoln  cold 
and  heartless,  or  warm  and  affectionate?  Can  a 


310  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

man  be  all  heart,  all  head,  and  all  conscience? 
Some  of  these  are  masters  over  the  others,  some 
will  be  dominant,  ruling  with  imperial  sway,  and 
thus  giving  character  to  the  man.  What,  in  the  first 
place,  do  we  mean  by  a  warm-hearted  man  ?  Is  it 
one  who  goes  out  of  himself  and  reaches  for  others 
spontaneously,  seeking  to  correct  some  abuse  to 
mankind  because  of  a  deep  love  for  humanity,  apart 
from  equity  and  truth,  and  who  does  what  he  does 
for  love's  sake?  If  so,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  cold  man. 
If  a  man,  woman,  or  child  approached  him,  and  the 
prayer  of  such  an  one  was  granted,  that  itself  was 
not  evidence  of  his  love.  The  African  was  enslaved 
and  deprived  of  his  rights ;  a  principle  was  violated 
in  doing  so.  Rights  imply  obligations  as  well  as 
duties.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  President;  he  was  in  a 
position  that  made  it  his  duty,  through  his  sense  of 
right,  his  love  of  principle,  the  constitutional  obliga 
tions  imposed  upon  him  by  the  oath  of  office,  to 
strike  the  blow  against  slavery.  But  did  he  do  it 
for  love  ?  He  has  himself  answered  the  question  *, 
"I  would  not  free  the  slaves  if  I  could  preserve  the 
Union  without  it."  When  he  freed  the  slaves  there 
was  no  heart  in  the  act.  This  argument  can  be 
used  against  his  too  enthusiastic  friends. 

In  general  terms  his  life  was  cold — at  least  char- 
acterized  by  what  many  persons  would  deem  great 
indifference.  He  had,  however,  a  strong  latent  ca 
pacity  to  love  :  but  the  object  must  first  come  in 
the  guise  of  a  principle,  next  it  must  be  right  and 
true — then  it  was  lovely  in  his  sight.  He  loved 
humanity  when  it  was  oppressed — an  abstract  love 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  3 1 1 

as  against  the  concrete  love  centered  in  an  individ- 
ual.  He  rarely  used  terms  of  endearment,  and  yet 
he  was  proverbially  tender  and  gentle.  He  gave 
the  key-note  to  his  own  character  when  he  said : 
"  With  malice  towards  none,  with  charity  for  all." 
In  proportion  to  his  want  of  deep,  intense  love  he 
had  no  hate  and  bore  no  malice.  His  charity  for 
an  imperfect  man  was  as  broad  as  his  devotion  to 
principle  was  enduring. 

"  But  was  not  Mr.  Lincoln  a  man  of  great  human 
ity?"  asks  a  friend  at  my  elbow;  to  which  I  reply, 
"  Has  not  that  question  been  answered  already  ?  " 
Let  us  suppose  it  has  not.  We  must  understand 
each  other.  What  is  meant  by  his  humanity  ?  Is 
it  meant  that  he  had  much  of  human  nature  in 
him  ?  If  so,  I  grant  that  he  was  a  man  of  humanity. 
If,  in  the  event  of  the  above  definition  being  unsatis 
factory  or  untrue,  it  is  meant  that  he  was  tender 
and  kind,  then  I  again  agree.  But  if  the  inference 
is  that  he  would  sacrifice  truth  or  right  in  the 
slightest  degree  for  the  love  of  a  friend,  then  he 
was  neither  tender  nor  kind ;  nor  did  he  have  any 
humanity.  The  law  of  human  nature  is  such  that  it 
cannot  be  all  head,  all  conscience,  and  all  heart  in 
one  person  at  the  same  time.  Our  Maker  so  consti 
tuted  things  that,  where  God  through  reason  blazed 
the  way,  we  might  boldly  walk  therein.  The  glory 
of  Mr.  Lincoln's  power  lay  in  the  just  and  magnifi 
cent  equipoise  of  head,  conscience,  and  heart ;  and 
here  his  fame  must  rest  or  not  at  all. 

Not  only  were  Mr.  Lincoln's  perceptions  good ; 
not  only  was  nature  suggestive  to  him ;  not  only 

44 


3 1 2  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN*. 

was  he  original  and  strong ;  not  only  had  he  great 
reason,  good  understanding  ;  not  only  did  he  love 
the  true  and  the  good — the  eternal  right ;  not  only 
was  he  tender  and  sympathetic  and  kind  ; — but,  in 
due  proportion  and  in  legitimate  subordination,  he 
had  a  glorious  combination  of  them  all.  Through 
his  perceptions — the  suggestiveness  of  nature,  his 
originality  and  strength  ;  through  his  magnificent 
reason,  his  understanding,  his  conscience,  his  ten 
derness,  quick  sympathy,  his  heart ;  he  approxi 
mated  as  nearly  as  human  nature  and  the  imperfect 
ions  of  man  would  permit  to  an  embodiment  of  the 
great  moral  principle,  "  Do  unto  others  as  ye  would 
they  should  do  unto  you." 

Of  Mr.  Lincoln's  will-power  there  are  two  opin 
ions  also :  one  that  he  lacked  any  will ;  the  other 
that  he  was  all  will.  Both  these  contradictory 
views  have  their  vehement  and  honest  champions. 
For  the  great  underlying  principles  of  mind  in  man 
he  had  great  respect.  He  loved  the  true  first,  the 
right  second,  and  the  good  last.  His  mind  strug 
gled  for  truth,  and  his  soul  reached  out  for  sub 
stances.  He  cared  not  for  forms,  ways,  methods — 
the  non-substantial  things  of  this  world.  He  could 
not,  by  reason  of  his  structure  and  mental  organiza 
tion,  care  anything  about  them.  He  did  not  have  an 
intense  care  for  any  particular  or  individual  man — • 
the  dollar,  property,  rank,  orders,  manners,  or  sim 
ilar  things ;  neither  did  he  have  any  avarice  or  other 
like  vice  in  his  nature.  He  detested  somewhat  all 
technical  rules  in  law,  philosophy,  and  other  sciences 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  313 

— mere  forms  everywhere — because  they  were,  as  a 
general  thing,  founded  on  arbitrary  thoughts  and 
ideas,  and  not  <  on  reason,  truth,  and  the  right. 
These  things  seemed  to  him  lacking  in  substance, 
and  he  disregarded  them  because  they  cramped  the 
originality  of  his  genius.  What  suited  a  little  nar 
row,  critical  mind  did  not  suit  Mr.  Lincoln  any 
more  than  a  child's  clothes  would  fit  his  father's 
body.  Generally  he  took  no  interest  in  town  affairs 
or  local  elections ;  he  attended  no  meetings  that 
pertained  to  local  interests.  He  did  not  care — be 
cause  by  reason  of  his  nature  he  could  not — who 
succeeded  to  the  presidency  of  this  or  that  society 
or  railroad  company ;  who  made  the  most  money ; 
who  was  going  to  Philadelphia,  and  what  were  the 
costs  of  such  a  trip ;  who  was  going  to  be  married  ; 
who  among  his  friends  got  this  office  or  that — who 
was  elected  street  commissioner  or  health  inspector. 
No  principle  of  truth,  right,  or  justice  being  in 
volved  in  any  of  these  things  he  could  not  be 
moved  by  them.*  He  could  not  understand  why 
men  struggled  so  desperately  for  the  little  glory  or 
lesser  salary  the  small  offices  afforded.  He  made 


*  A  bitter,  malignant  fool  who  always  had  opposed  Lincoln  and  his 
friends,  and  had  lost  no  opportunity  to  abuse  them,  induced  Lincoln 
to  go  to  the  Governor  of  Illinois  and  recommend  him  for  an  impor 
tant  office  in  the  State  Militia.  There  being  no  principle  at  stake 
Lincoln  could  not  refuse  the  request.  When  his  friends  heard  of  it 
they  were  furious  in  their  denunciation  of  his  action.  It  mortified 
him  greatly  to  learn  that  he  had  displeased  them.  "  And  yet,"  he 
said,  a  few  days  later,  dwelling  on  the  matter  to  me  in  the  office, '* 1 
couldn't  well  refuse  the  little  the  fellow  asked  of  me. " 


314  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

this  remark  to  me  one  day  in  Washington:  "If 
ever  this  free  people — this  Government — is  utterly 
demoralized,  it  will  come  from  this  human  struggle 
for  office — a  way  to  live  without  work."  It  puz 
zled  him  a  good  deal,  he  said,  to  get  at  the  root  of 
this  dreaded  disease,  which  spread  like  contagion 
during  the  nation's  death  struggle. 

Because  he  could  not  feel  a  deep  interest  in  the 
things  referred  to,  nor  manifest  the  same  interest  in 
those  who  were  engaged  in  the  popular  scramble, 
he  was  called  indifferent — nay,  ungrateful — to  his 
friends.  This  estimate  of  the  man  was  a  very  un 
just  as  well  as  unfair  one.  Mr.  Lincoln  loved  his 
friends  with  commendable  loyalty  •  in  many  cases 
he  clung  to  them  tenaciously,  like  iron  to  iron 
welded ;  and  yet,  because  he  could  not  be  actively 
aroused,  nor  enter  into  the  spirit  of  their  anxiety 
for  office,  he  was  called  ungrateful.  But  he  was  not 
so.  He  may  have  seemed  passive  and  lacking  in 
interest  ;  he  may  not  have  measured  his  friendly 
duties  by  the  applicant's  hot  desire ;  but  yet  he  was 
never  ungrateful.  Neither  was  he  a  selfish  man. 
He  would  never  have  performed  an  act,  even  to  pro 
mote  himself  to  the  Presidency,  if  by  that  act  any 
human  being  was  wronged.  If  it  is  said  that  he 
preferred  Abraham  Lincoln  to  anyone  else  in  the 
pursuit  of  his  ambition,  and  that  because  of  this  he 
was  a  selfish  man,  then  I  can  see  no  impropriety  in 
the  charge.  Under  the  same  conditions  we  should 
all  be  equally  guilty. 

%  Remembering  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  mind  moved 
logically,  slowly,  and  cautiously,  the  question  of  his 


THE  ST.  GAUDENS  STATUE  OF  LINCOLN, 
In  Lincoln  Park,  Chicago. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  3 1  5 

will  and  its  power  is  easily  solved.  Although  he 
cared  but  little  for  simple  facts,  rules,  and  methods, 
he  did  care  for  the  truth  and  right  of  principle.  In 
debate  he  courteously  granted  all  the  forms  and 
non-essential  things  to  his  opponent.  Sometimes 
he  yielded  nine  points  out  of  ten.  The  nine  he 
brushed  aside  as  husks  or  rubbish ;  but  the  tenth, 
being  a  question  of  substance,  he  clung  to  with  all 
his  might.  On  the  underlying  principles  of  truth 
and  justice  his  will  was  as  firm  as  steel  and  as  tena 
cious  as  iron.  It  was  as  solid,  real,  and  vital  as  an 
idea  on  which  the  world  turns.  He  scorned  to  sup 
port  or  adopt  an  untrue  position,  in  proportion  as 
his  conscience  prevented  him  from  doing  an  unjust 
thing.  Ask  him  to  sacrifice  in  the  slightest  degree 
his  convictions  of  truth  * — as  he  was  asked  to  do 
when  he  made  his  "  house-divided-against-itself 
speech  " — and  his  soul  would  have  exclaimed  with 
indignant  scorn,  "  The  world  perish  first !  " 

Such  was  Lincoln's  will.  Because  on  one  line  of 
questions — the  non-essential — he  was  pliable,  and  on 
the  other  he  was  as  immovable  as  the  rocks,  have 
arisen  the  contradictory  notions  prevalent  regarding 
him.  It  only  remains  to  say  that  he  was  inflexible 
and  unbending  in  human  transactions  when  it  was 

*  "  Mr.  Lincoln  seems  to  me  too  true  and  honest  a  man  to  have 
his  eulogy  written,  and  I  have  no  taste  for  writing  eulogies.  I  am 
sure  that,  if  he  were  alive,  he  would  feel  that  the  exact  truth  regard 
ing  himself  was  far  more  worthy  of  himself  and  of  his  biographer 
than  any  flattering  picture.  I  loved  the  man  as  he  was,  with  his 
rugged  features,  his  coarse,  rebellious  hair,  his  sad,  dreamy  eyes  ; 
and  I  love  to  see  him,  and  I  hope  to  describe  him,  as  he  was,  and 
not  otherwise." — Robert  Dale  Owen,  January  22,  1867,  MS. 


316  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

necessary  to  be  so,  and  not  otherwise.  At  one  mo 
ment  he  was  pliable  and  expansive  as  gentle  air ;  at 
the  next  as  tenacious  and  unyielding  as  gravity  itself. 

Thus  I  have  traced  Mr.  Lincoln  through  his  per- 
ceptions,  his  suggestiveness,  his  judgment,  and  his 
four  predominant  qualities :  powers  of  reason,  un 
derstanding,  conscience,  and  heart.  In  the  grand 
review  of  his  peculiar  characteristics,  nothing  creates 
such  an  impressive  effect  as  his  love  of  the  truth. 
It  looms  up  over  everything  else.  His  life  is  proof 
of  the  assertion  that  he  never  yielded  in  his  funda 
mental  conception  of  truth  to  any  man  for  any  end. 

All  the  follies  and  wrong  Mr.  Lincoln  ever  fell 
into  or  committed  sprang  out  of  these  weak  points : 
the  want  of  intuitive  judgment ;  the  lack  of  quick, 
sagacious  knowledge  of  the  play  and  meaning  of 
men's  features  as  written  on  the  face ;  the  want  of 
the  sense  of  propriety  of  things ;  his  tenderness  and 
mercy ;  and  lastly,  his  unsuspecting  nature.  He 
was  deeply  and  sincerely  honest  himself,  and  as 
sumed  that  others  were  so.  He  never  suspected 
men  ;  and  hence  in  dealing  with  them  he  was  easily 
imposed  upon. 

All  the  wise  and  good  things  Mr.  Lincoln  ever 
did  sprang  out  of  his  great  reason,  his  conscience, 
his  understanding,  his  heart,  his  love  of  trie  truth, 
the  right,  and  the  good.  I  am  speaking  now  of  his 
particular  and  individual  faculties  and  qualities,  not 
of  their  combination  or  the  result  of  any  combina 
tions.  Run  out  these  qualities  and  faculties  ab 
stractly,  and  see  what  they  produce.  For  instance, 
a  tender  heart,  a  strong  reason,  a  broad  under 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  317 

standing,  an  exalted  conscience,  a  love  of  the  true 
and  the  good  must,  proportioned  reasonably  and 
applied  practically,  produce  a  man  of  great  power 
and  great  humanity. 

As  illustrative  of  a  combination  in  Mr.  Lincoln's 
organization,  it  may  be  said  that  his  eloquence  lay 
in  the  strength  of  his  logical  faculty,  his  supreme 
power  of  reasoning,  his  great  understanding,  and 
his  love  of  principle  ;  in  his  clear  and  accurate  vision  ; 
in  his  cool  and  masterly  statement  of  principles 
around  which  the  issues  gather ;  and  in  the  state 
ment  of  those  issues  and  the  grouping  of  the  facts 
that  are  to  carry  conviction  to  the  minds  of  men  of 
every  grade  of  intelligence.  He  was  so  clear  that 
he  could  not  be  misunderstood  or  long  misrepre 
sented.  He  stood  square  and  bolt  upright  to  his 
convictions,  and  anyone  who  listened  to  him  would 
be  convinced  that  he  formed  his  thoughts  and  utter 
ances  by  them.  His  mind  was  not  exactly  a  wide, 
broad,  generalizing,  and  comprehensive  mind,  nor 
yet  a  versatile,  quick,  and  subtle  one,  bounding  here 
and  there  as  emergencies  demanded ;  but  it  was  deep, 
enduring,  strong,  like  a  majestic  machine  running  in 
deep  iron  grooves  with  heavy  flanges  on  its  wheels. 

Mr.  Lincoln  himself  was  a  very  sensitive  man,  and 
hence,  in  dealing  with  others,  he  avoided  wounding 
their  hearts  or  puncturing  their  sensibility.  He 
was  unusually  considerate  of  the  feelings  of  other 
men,  regardless  of  their  rank,  condition,  or  station. 
At  first  sight  he  struck  one  with  his  plainness,  sim 
plicity  of  manner,  sincerity,  candor,  and  truthfulness. 
He  had  no  double  interests  and  no  overwhelming 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

dignity  with  which  to  chill  the  air  around  his  visitor. 
He  was  always  easy  of  approach  and  thoroughly 
democratic.  He  seemed  to  throw  a  charm  around 
every  man  who  ever  met  him.  To  be  in  his  pres 
ence  was  a  pleasure,  and  no  man  ever  left  his  com 
pany  with  injured  feelings  unless  most  richly  de 
served. 

The  universal  testimony,  "  He  is  an  honest  man," 
gave  him  a  firm  hold  on  the  masses,  and  they  trusted 
him  with  a  blind  religious  faith.  His  sad,  melan 
choly  face  excited  their  sympathy,  and  when  the 
dark  days  came  it  was  their  heart-strings  that 
entwined  and  sustained  him.  Sympathy,  we  are 
told,  is  one  of  the  strongest  and  noblest  incentives 
to  human  action.  With  the  sympathy  and  love  of 
the  people  to  sustain  him,  Lincoln  had  unlimited 
power  over  them  ;  he  threw  an  invisible  and  weight 
less  harness  over  them,  and  drove  them  through 
disaster  and  desperation  to  final  victory.  The  trust 
and  worship  by  the  people  of  Lincoln  were  the 
result  of  his  simple  character.  He  held  himself  not 
aloof  from  the  masses.  He  became  one  of  them. 
They  feared  together,  they  struggled  together,  they 
hoped  together ;  thus  melted  and  moulded  into 
one,  they  became  one  in  thought,  one  in  will,  one 
in  action.  If  Lincoln  cautiously  awaited  the  full 
development  of  the  last  fact  in  the  great  drama 
before  he  acted,  when  longer  waiting  would  be  a 
crime,  he  knew  that  the  people  were  determinedly  at 
his  back.  Thus,  when  a  blow  was  struck,  it  came 
with  the  unerring  aim  and  power  of  a  bolt  from 
heaven.  A  natural  king — not  ruling  men,  but  lead- 


r 


THE  LINCOLN  MONUMENT  IN  SPRINGFIELD. 


THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  319 

ing  them  along  the  drifts  and  trends  of  their  own  ten 
dencies,  always  keeping  in  mind  the  consent  of  the 
governed,  he  developed  what  the  future  historian 
will  call  the  sublimest  order  of  conservative  states 
manship. 

Whatever  of  life,  vigor,  force,  and  power  of  elo 
quence  his  peculiar  qualities  gave  him  ;  whatever 
there  was  in  a  fair,  manly,  honest,  and  impartial 
adminstration  of  justice  under  law  to  all  men  at  all 
times  ;  whatever  there  was  in  a  strong  will  in  the 
right  governed  by  tenderness  and  mercy ;  whatever 
there  was  in  toil  and  sublime  patience  ;  whatever 
there  was  in  these  things  or  a  wise  combination  of 
them,  Lincoln  is  justly  entitled  to  in  making  up  the 
impartial  verdict  of  history.  These  limit  and  define 
him  as  a  statesman,  as  an  orator,  as  an  executive  of 
the  nation,  and  as  a  man.  They  developed  in  all 
the  walks  of  his  life  ;  they  were  his  law ;  they  were 
his  nature ,  they  were  Abraham  Lincoln. 

This  long,  bony,  sad  man  floated  down  the  Sanga- 
mon  river  in  a  frail  canoe  in  the  spring  of  1831. 
Like  a  piece  of  driftwood  he  lodged  at  last,  without 
a  history,  strange,  penniless,  and  alone.  In  sight  of 
the  capital  of  Illinois,  in  the  fatigue  of  daily  toil  he 
struggled  for  the  necessaries  of  life.  Thirty  years 
later  this  same  peculiar  man  left  the  Sangamon 
river,  backed  by  friends,  by  power,  by  the  patriotic 
prayers  of  millions  of  people,  to  be  the  ruler  of  the 
greatest  nation  in  the  world. 

As  the  leader  of  a  brave  people  in  their  desperate 
struggle  for  national  existence,  Abraham  Lincoln 
will  always  be  an  interesting  historical  character. 


320  THE  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

His  strong,  honest,  sagacious,  and  noble  life  will 
always  possess  a  peculiar  charm.  Had  it  not  been 
for  his  conservative  statesmanship,  his  supreme  con 
fidence  in  the  wisdom  of  the  people,  his  extreme  care 
in  groping  his  way  among  facts  and  before  ideas, 
this  nation  might  have  been  two  governments  to-day. 
The  low  and  feeble  circulation  of  his  blood ;  his 
healthful  irritability,  which  responded  so  slowly  to 
the  effects  of  stimuli ;  the  strength  of  his  herculean 
frame ;  his  peculiar  organism,  conserving  its  force  ; 
his  sublime  patience;  his  wonderful  endurance  ;  his 
great  hand  and  heart,  saved  this  country  from  divi 
sion,  when  division  meant  its  irreparable  ruin. 

The  central  figure  of  our  national  history,  the 
sublime  type  of  our  civilization,  posterity,  with  the 
record  of  his  career  and  actions  before  it,  will  decree 
that,  whether  Providence  so  ordained  it  or  not, 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  the  man  for  the  hour. 


APPENDIX. 


UNPUBLISHED  FAMILY  LETTERS. 

THE  following  letters  by  Mr.  Lincoln  to  his  relatives  were  at 
one  time  placed  in  my  hands.  As  they  have  never  before  been 
published  entire  I  have  thought  proper  to  append  them  here. 
They  are  only  interesting  as  showing  Mr.  Lincoln's  affection 
for  his  father  and  step-mother,  and  as  specimens  of  the  good, 
sound  sense  with  which  he  approached  every  undertaking. 
The  list  opens  with  a  letter  to  his  father  written  from  Wash 
ington  while  a  member  of  Congress : 

"  WASHINGTON,  Dec.  24, 1848. 
~  My  Dear  Father  : 

"  Your  letter  of  the  7th  was  received  night  before  last.  I 
very  cheerfully  send  you  the  twenty  dollars,  which  sum  you 
say  is  necessary  to  save  your  land  from  sale.  It  is  singular 
that  you  should  have  forgotten  a  judgment  against  you — and 
ft  is  more  singular  that  the  plaintiff  should  have  let  you  forget 
it  so  long,  particularly  as  I  suppose  you  have  always  had  prop 
erty  enough  to  satisfy  a  judgment  of  that  amount.  Before  you 
pay  it,  it  would  be  well  to  be  sure  you  have  not  paid,  or  at  least 
that  you  cannot  prove  you  have  paid  it. 
"  Give  my  love  to  Mother  and  all  the  Connections. 
"  Affectionately,  your  son, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

His  step-brother,  John  D.  Johnston,  for  whom  Mr.  Lincoln 
always  exhibited  the  affection  of  a  real  brother,  was  the  recip 
ient  of  many  letters.  Some  of  them  were  commonplace,  but 


$22  APPENDIX. 

between  the  lines  of  each  much  good,  homely  philosophy  may 
be  read.  Johnston,  whom  I  knew,  was  exactly  what  his  dis 
tinguished  step-brother  charged — an  idler.  In  every  emer 
gency  he  seemed  to  fall  back  on  Lincoln  for  assistance.  The 
aid  generally  came,  but  with  it  always  some  plain  but  sensible 
suggestion.  The  series  opens  as  follows : 

"SPRINGFIELD,  Feb.  23,  1850. 

"  Dear  Brother : 

"  Your  letter  about  a  mail  contract  was  received  yesterday. 
I  have  made  out  a  bid  for  you  at  $120,  guaranteed  it  myself, 
got  our  P.  M.  here  to  certify  it,  and  send  it  on.  Your  former 
letter,  concerning  some  man's  claim  for  a  pension,  was  also 
received.  I  had  the  claim  examined  by  those  who  are  prac 
tised  in  such  matters,  and  they  decide  he  cannot  get  a  pen 
sion. 

"  As  you  make  no  mention  of  it,  I  suppose  you   had  not 
learned  that  we  lost  our  little  boy.    He  was  sick  fifteen  days, 
and  died  in  the  morning  of  the  first  day  of  this  month.     It  was 
not  our  first,  but  our  second  child.    We  miss  him  very  much. 
"  Your  Brother,  in  haste, 

"  A.  LINCOLN." 

"  To  JOHN  D.  JOHNSTON." 

Following  is  another,  which,  however,  bears  no  aate : 

"  Dear  Johnston : 

"  Your  request  for  eighty  dollars  I  do  not  think  it  best  to 
comply  with  now.  At  the  various  times  when  I  have  helped 
you  a  little  you  have  said  to  me,  '  We  can  get  along  very  well 
now,'  but  in  a  very  short  time  I  find  you  in  the  same  difficulty 
again.  Now  this  can  only  happen  by  some  defect  in  your  con 
duct.  What  that  defect  is,  I  think  I  know.  You  are  not  lazy, 
and  still  you  are  an  idler.  I  doubt  whether,  since  I  saw  you, 
you  have  done  a  good  whole  day's  work  in  any  one  day.  You 
do  not  very  much  dislike  to  work,  and  still  you  do  not  work 
much,  merely  because  it  does  not  seem  to  you  that  you  could 
get  much  for  it.  This  habit  of  uselessly  wasting  time  is  the 
whole  difficulty ;  and  it  is  vastly  important  to  you,  and  still 


APPENDIX.  323 

more  so  to  your  children,  that  you  should  break  the  habit.  It 
is  more  important  to  them  because  they  have  longer  to  live, 
and  can  keep  out  of  an  idle  habit,  before  they  are  in  it,  easier 
than  they  can  get  out  after  they  are  in. 

"  You  are  in  need  of  some  ready  money,  and  what  I  propose 
is  that  you  shall  go  to  work  '  tooth  and  nail '  for  somebody 
who  will  give  you  money  for  it.  Let  father  and  your  boys 
take  charge  of  things  at  home,  prepare  for  a  crop,  and  make  the 
crop,  and  you  go  to  work  for  the  best  money  wages,  or  in  dis 
charge  of  any  debt  you  owe,  that  you  can  get,— and  to  secure 
you  a  fair  reward  for  your  labor,  I  now  promise  you  that  for 
every  dollar  you  will,  between  this  and  the  first  of  next  May, 
get  for  your  own  labor,  either  in  money  or  as  your  own  in 
debtedness,  I  will  then  give  you  one  other  dollar.  By  this,  if 
you  hire  yourself  at  ten  dollars  a  month,  from  me  you  will  get 
ten  more,  making  twenty  dollars  a  month  for  your  work.  In 
this  I  do  not  mean  you  shall  go  off  to  St.  Louis,  or  the  lead 
mines,  or  the  gold  mines  in  California,  but  I  mean  for  you  to 
go  at  it  for  the  best  wages  you  can  get  close  to  home  in  Coles 
County.  Now  if  you  will  do  this,  you  will  be  soon  out  of 
debt,  and,  what  is  better,  you  will  have  a  habit  that  will  keep 
you  from  getting  in  debt  again.  But  if  I  should  now  clear  you 
"out,  next  year  you  would  be  just  as  deep  in  as  ever.  You  say 
you  would  give  your  place  in  heaven  for  $70  or  $80.  Then 
you  value  your  place  in  heaven  very  cheap,  for  I  am  sure  you 
can,  with  the  offer  I  make,  get  the  seventy  or  eighty  dollars  for 
four  or  five  months'  work. 

"  You  say,  if  I  will  furnish  you  the  money,  you  will  deed  me 
the  land,  and  if  you  don't  pay  the  money  back  you  will  deliver 
possession.  Nonsense !  If  you  can't  now  live  with  the  land, 
how  will  you  then  live  without  it  ?  You  have  always  been  kind 
to  me,  and  I  do  not  mean  to  be  unkind  to  you.  On  the  con 
trary,  if  you  will  but  follow  my  advice,  you  will  find  it  worth 
more  than  eight  times  eighty  dollars  to  you. 
"  Affectionately, 

"  Your  brother, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 


324  APPENDIX. 

The  following,  written  when  the  limit  of  Thomas  Lincoln's 
life  seemed  rapidly  approaching,  shows  in  what  esteem  his  son 
held  the  relation  that  existed  between  them : 

"SPRINGFIELD,  Jan'y  12,  1851. 
"  Dear  Brother  : 

"  On  the  day  before  yesterday  I  received  a  letter  from  Har 
riett,  written  at  Greenup.  She  says  she  has  just  returned  from 
your  house ;  and  that  Father  is  very  low,  and  will  hardly  re 
cover.  She  also  says  that  you  have  written  me  two  letters ; 
and  that  although  you  do  not  expect  me  to  come  now,  you 
wonder  that  I  do  not  write.  I  received  both  your  letters,  and 
although  I  have  not  answered  them,  it  is  not  because  I  have 
forgotten  them,  or  [not]  been  interested  about  them,  but  be 
cause  it  appeared  to  me  I  could  write  nothing  which  could  do 
any  good.  You  already  know  I  desire  that  neither  Father  or 
Mother  shall  be  in  want  of  any  comfort  either  in  health  or  sick 
ness  while  they  live  ;  and  I  feel  sure  you  have  not  failed  to  use 
my  name,  if  necessary,  to  procure  a  doctor,  or  anything  else 
for  Father  in  his  present  sickness.  My  business  is  such  that  I 
could  hardly  leave  home  now,  if  it  were  not,  as  it  is,  that  my 
own  wife  is  sick  a-bed  (it  is  a  case  of  baby-sickness,  and  I 
suppose  is  not  dangerous).  I  sincerely  hope  Father  may  yet 
recover  his  health ;  but  at  all  events  tell  him  to  remember  to 
call  upon  and  confide  in  our  great,  and  good,  and  merciful 
Maker,  who  will  not  turn  away  from  him  in  any  extremity. 
He  notes  the  fall  of  a  sparrow,  and  numbers  the  hairs  of  our 
heads ;  and  He  will  not  forget  the  dying  man  who  puts  his 
trust  in  Him.  Say  to  him  that  if  we  could  meet  now  it  is 
doubtful  whether  it  would  not  be  more  painful  than  pleasant ; 
but  that  if  it  be  his  lot  to  go  now  he  will  soon  have  a  joyous 
meeting  with  many  loved  ones  gone  before,  and  where  the 
rest  of  us,  through  the  help  of  God,  hope  ere  long  to  join 
them. 

"  Write  me  again  when  you  receive  this. 

"  Affectionately, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 


APPENDIX.  325 

Lincoln's  mentor-like  interest  in  his  step-mother  and  his 
shiftless  and  almost  unfortunate  step-brother  was  in  no  wise 
diminished  by  the  death  of  his  father.  He  writes : 

"  SPRINGFIELD,  Aug.  31,  1851. 
"  Dear  Brother  : 

"  Inclosed  is  the  deed  for  the  land.    We  are  all  well,  and 
have  nothing  in  the  way  of  news.     We  have  had  no  cholera 
here  for  about  two  weeks. 
"  Give  my  love  to  all,  and  especially  to  Mother. 

"  Yours  as  ever, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

No  more  practical  or  kindly- earnest  advice  could  have  been 
given  than  this : 

"  SHELBYVILLE,  Nov.  4,  1851. 
"Dear  Brother: 

"  When  I  came  into  Charleston  day  before  yesterday  I 
learned  that  you  are  anxious  to  sell  the  land  where  you  live, 
and  move  to  Missouri.  I  have  been  thinking  of  this  ever 
since,  and  cannot  but  think  such  a  notion  is  utterly  foolish. 
What  can  you  do  in  Missouri  better  than  here  ?  Is  the  land 
richer  ?  Can  you  there,  any  more  than  here,  raise  corn  and 
wheat  and  oats  without  work  ?  Will  anybody  there,  any  more 
than  here,  do  your  work  for  you  ?  If  you  intend  to  go  to 
work,  there  is  no  better  place  than  right  where  you  are ;  if  you 
do  not  intend  to  go  to  work  you  cannot  get  along  anywhere. 
Squirming  and  crawling  about  from  place  to  place  can  do  no 
good.  You  have  raised  no  crop  this  year,  and  what  you  really 
want  is  to  sell  the  land,  get  the  money  and  spend  it.  Part 
with  the  land  you  have,  and,  my  life  upon  it,  you  will  never 
after  own  a  spot  big  enough  to  bury  you  in.  Half  you  will 
get  for  the  land  you  spend  in  moving  to  Missouri,  and  the 
other  half  you  will  eat  and  drink  and  wear  out,  and  no  foot  of 
land  will  be  bought.  Now  I  feel  it  is  my  duty  to  have  no 
hand  in  such  a  piece  of  foolery.  I  feel  that  it  is  so  even  on 
your  own  account,  and  particularly  on  Mother's  account.  The 
eastern  forty  acres  I  intend  to  keep  for  Mother  while  she  lives ; 


326  APPENDIX. 

if  you  will  not  cultivate  it,  it  will  rent  for  enough  to  support 
her ;  at  least  it  will  rent  for  something.  Her  dower  in  the 
other  two  forties  she  can  let  you  have,  and  no  thanks  to  me. 

"  Now  do  not  misunderstand  this  letter.  I  do  not  write  it  in 
any  unkindness.  1  write  it  in  order,  if  possible,  to  get  you  to 
face  the  truth,  which  truth  is,  you  are  destitute  because  you 
have  idled  away  all  your  time.  Your  thousand  pretences  for 
not  getting  along  better  are  all  nonsense ;  they  deceive 
nobody  but  yourself.  Go  to  work  is  the  only  cure  for  your 
case. 

44  A  word  for  Mother  :  Chapman  tells  me  he  wants  you  to  go 
and  live  with  him.  If  I  were  you  I  would  try  it  awhile.  If 
you  get  tired  of  it  (as  I  think  you  will  not)  you  can  return  to 
your  own  home.  Chapman  feels  very  kindly  to  you  ;  and  I 
have  no  doubt  he  will  make  your  situation  very  pleasant. 

"  Sincerely  your  son, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

The  list  closes  with  this  one  written  by  Lincoln  while  on  the 
circuit : 

"SHELBYVILLE,  Nov.  9,  1851. 

"Dear  Brother  : 

'4  When  I  wrote  you  before,  I  had  not  received  your  letter. 
I  still  think  as  I  did  ;  but  if  the  land  can  be  sold  so  that  I  get 
three  hundred  dollars  to  put  to  interest  for  Mother,  I  will  not 
object  if  she  does  not.  But  before  I  will  make  a  deed,  the 
money  must  be  had,  or  secured  beyond  all  doubt  at  ten  per 
cent. 

44  As  to  Abraham,  I  do  not  want  him  on  my  own  account ; 
but  I  understand  he  wants  to  live  with  me  so  that  he  can  go  to 
school  and  get  a  fair  start  in  the  world,  which  I  very  much 
wish  him  to  have.  When  I  reach  home,  if  I  can  make  it  con 
venient  to  take,  I  will  take  him,  provided  there  is  no  mistake 
between  us  as  to  the  object  and  terms  of  my  taking  him. 

44  In  haste,  as  ever, 

44  A.  LINCOLN." 


APPENDIX.  327 


AN  INCIDENT  ON  THE  CIRCUIT. 

"  In  the  spring  term  of  the  Tazewell  County  Court  in  1847, 
which  at  that  time  was  held  in  the  village  of  Tremont,  I  was 
detained  as  a  witness  an  entire  week.  Lincoln  was  employed 
in  several  suits,  and  among  them  was  one  of  Case  vs.  Snow 
Bros.  The  Snow  Bros.,  as  appeared  in  evidence  (who  were 
both  minors),  had  purchased  from  an  old  Mr.  Case  what  was 
then  called  a  "  prairie  team,"  consisting  of  two  or  three  yoke 
of  oxen  and  prairie  plow,  giving  therefor  their  joint  note  for 
some  two  hundred  dollars  ;  but  when  pay-day  came  refused  to 
pay,  pleading  the  minor  act.  The  note  was  placed  in  Lincoln's 
hands  for  collection.  The  suit  was  called  and  a  jury  im 
panelled.  The  Snow  Bros,  did  not  deny  the  note,  but  pleaded 
through  their  counsel  that  they  were  minors,  and  that  Mr. 
Case  knew  they  were  at  the  time  of  the  contract  and  convey 
ance.  All  this  was  admitted  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  with  his  peculiar 
phrase,  '  Yes,  gentlemen,  I  reckon  that's  so.'  The  minor  act 
was  read  and  its  validity  admitted  in  the  same  manner.  The 
counsel  of  the  defendants  were  permitted  without  question  to 
state  all  these  things  to  the  jury,  and  to  show  by  the  statute 
that  these  minors  could  not  be  held  responsible  for  their  con 
tract.  By  this  time  you  may  well  suppose  that  I  began  to  be 
uneasy.  '  What ! '  thought  I,  '  this  good  old  man,  who  con 
fided  in  these  boys,  to  be  wronged  in  this  way,  and  even  his 
counsel,  Mr.  Lincoln,  to  submit  in  silence ! '  I  looked  at  the 
court,  Judge  Treat,  but  could  read  nothing  in  his  calm  and  dig 
nified  demeanor.  Just  then,  Mr.  Lincoln  slowly  got  up,  and  in 
his  strange,  half-erect  attitude  and  clear,  quiet  accent  began : 
'  Gentlemen  of  the  Jury,  are  you  willing  to  allow  these  boys  to 
begin  life  with  this  shame  and  disgrace  attached  to  their  char 
acter  ?  If  you  are,  /  am  not.  The  best  judge  of  human  char 
acter  that  ever  wrote  has  left  these  immortal  words  for  all  of 
us  to  ponder : 

45 


328  APPENDIX. 

"  Good  name  in  man  or  woman,  dear  my  lord, 
Is  the  immediate  jewel  of  their  souls  : 
Who  steals  my  purse  steals  trash  ;  'tis  something,  nothing ; 
'Twas  mine,  'tis  his,  and  has  been  slave  to  thousands  ; 
But  he  that  filches  from  me  my  good  name 
Robs  me  of  that  which  not  enriches  him 
And  makes  me  poor  indeed."  ' 

"  Then  rising  to  his  full  height,  and  looking  upon  the  defend 
ants  with  the  compassion  of  a  brother,  his  long  right  arm 
extended  toward  the  opposing  counsel,  he  continued  :  '  Gentle 
men  of  the  jury,  these  poor  innocent  boys  would  never  have 
attempted  this  low  villany  had  it  not  been  for  the  advice  of 
these  lawyers.'  Then  for  a  few  minutes  he  showed  how  even 
the  noble  science  of  law  may  be  prostituted.  With  a  scathing 
rebuke  to  those  who  thus  belittle  their  profession,  he  con 
cluded  :  '  And  now,  gentlemen,  you  have  it  in  your  power  to 
set  these  boys  right  before  the  world.'  He  plead  for  the  young 
men  only ;  I  think  he  did  not  mention  his  client's  name.  The 
jury,  without  leaving  their  seats,  decided  that  the  defendants 
must  pay  the  debt ;  and  the  latter,  after  hearing  Lincoln,  were 
as  willing  to  pay  it  as  the  jury  were  determined  they  should. 
I  think  the  entire  argument  lasted  not  above  five  minutes." — 
George  W.  Minier,  statement,  Apr.  10,  1882. 


LINCOLN'S  FELLOW  LAWYERS. 

Among  Lincoln's  colleagues  at  the  Springfield  bar,  after  his 
re-entry  into  politics  in  1854,  and  until  his  elevation  to  the  Pres 
idency,  were,  John  T.  Stuart,  Stephen  T.  Logan,  John  A.  Mc- 
Clernand,  Benjamin  S.  Edwards,  David  Logan,  E.  B.  Herndon, 
W.  I.  Ferguson,  James  H.  Matheney,  C.  C.  Brown,  N.  M. 
Broadwell,  Charles  W.  Keyes,  John  E.  Rosette,  C.  S.  Zane,  J. 
C.  Conkling,  Shelby  M.  Cullom,  and  G.  W.  Shutt.  There  were 
others,  notably  John  M.  Palmer  and  Richard  J.  Oglesby,  who 
came  in  occasionally  from  other  counties  and  tried  suits  with 
and  against  us,  but  they  never  became  members  of  our  bar, 
strictly  speaking,  till  after  the  war  had  closed. — W.  H.  H. 


APPENDIX.  329 

THE     TRUCE      WITH      DOUGLAS. — TESTIMONY      OF 
IRWIN. 

"The  conversation  took  place  in  the  office  of  Lincoln  & 
Herndon,  in  the  presence  of  P.  L.  Harrison,  William  H.  Hern- 
don,  Pascal  Enos,  and  myself.  It  originated  in  this  way : 
After  the  debate  at  Springfield  on  the  4th  and  5th  of  October, 
1854,  William  Jayne,  John  Cassiday,  Pascal  Enos,  the  writer, 
and  others  whose  names  I  do  not  now  remember,  filled  out  and 
signed  a  written  request  to  Lincoln  to  follow  Douglas  until  he 
'ran  him  into  his  hole '  or  made  him  halloo  '  Enough,'  and  that 
day  Lincoln  was  giving  in  his  report.  He  said  that  the  next 
morning  after  the  Peoria  debate  Douglas  came  to  him  and 
flattered  him  that  he  knew  more  on  the  question  of  Territorial 
organization  in  this  government  than  all  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States,  and  called  his  mind  to  the  trouble  the  latter  had 
given  him.  He  added  that  Lincoln  had  already  given  him  more 
trouble  than  all  the  opposition  in  the  Senate,  and  then  proposed 
to  Lincoln  that  if  he  (Lincoln)  would  go  home  and  not  follow 
him,  he  (Douglas)  would  go  to  no  more  of  his  appointments, 
would  make  no  more  speeches,  and  would  go  home  and 
remain  silent  during  the  rest  of  the  campaign.  Lincoln  did 
not  make  another  speech  till  after  the  election."— B.  F.  Irwin. 
statement,  Feb.  8,  1866,  unpublished  MS. 

See  ante>  pp.  368-369. 


THE  BLOOMINGTON  CONVENTION. 

Following  is  a  copy  of  the  call  to  select  delegates  to  the 
Bloomington  Convention  held  May  29,  1856,  when  the  Repub 
lican  party  in  Illinois  came  into  existence.  It  will  be  remem 
bered  that  I  signed  Lincoln's  name  under  instructions  from  him 
by  telegraph.  The  original  document  I  gave  several  years  ago 
to  a  friend  in  Boston,  Mass.: 


330  APPENDIX. 

"  We,  the  undersigned,  citizens  of  Sangamon  County,  who 
are  opposed  to  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  the 
present  administration,  and  who  are  in  favor  of  restoring  to 
the  general  government  the  policy  of  Washington  and  Jefferson, 
would  suggest  the  propriety  of  a  County  Convention,  to  be 
held  in  the  city  of  Springfield  on  Saturday,  the  24th  day  of 
May,  at  2  o'clock,  P.  M.,  to  appoint  delegates  to  the  Blooming- 
ton  Convention. 

"  A.  LINCOLN, 

"  W.  H.  HERNDON  and  others." 

The  decided  stand  Lincoln  took  in  this  instance,  and  his 
speech  in  the  Convention,  undoubtedly  paved  the  way  for  his 
leadership  in  the  Republican  party. — W.  H.  H. 


AN  OFFICE  DISCUSSION— LINCOLN'S  IDEA  OF  WAR. 

One  morning  in  1859,  Lincoln  and  I,  impressed  with  the 
probability  of  war  between  the  two  sections  of  the  country, 
were  discussing  the  subject  in  the  office.  "  The  position  taken 
by  the  advocates  of  State  Sovereignty,"  remarked  Lincoln, 
"always  reminds  me  of  the  fellow  who  contended  that  the 
proper  place  for  the  big  kettle  was  inside  of  the  little  one." 
To  me,  war  seemed  inevitable,  but  when  I  came  to  view  the 
matter  squarely,  I  feared  a  difficulty  the  North  would  have  in 
controlling  the  various  classes  of  people  and  shades  of  senti 
ment,  so  as  to  make  them  an  effective  force  in  case  of  war :  I 
feared  the  lack  of  some  great  head  and  heart  to  lead  us  on 
ward.  Lincoln  had  great  confidence  in  the  masses,  believing 
that,  when  they  were  brought  face  to  face  with  the  reality  of  the 
conflict,  all  differences  would  disappear,  and  that  they  would  be 
merged  into  one.  To  illustrate  his  idea  he  made  use  of  this 
figure  :  "  Go  to  the  river  bank  with  a  coarse  sieve  and  fill  it 
with  gravel.  After  a  vigorous  shaking  you  will  observe  that 
the  small  pebbles  and  sand  have  sunk  from  view  and  fallen  to 
the  ground.  The  next  larger  in  size,  unable  to  slip  between 


APPENDIX.  331 

the  wires,  will  still  be  found  within  the  sieve.  By  thorough  and 
repeated  shakings  you  will  find  that,  of  the  pebbles  still  left  in 
the  sieve,  the  largest  ones  will  have  risen  to  the  top.  Now," 
he  continued,  "  if,  as  you  say,  war  is  inevitable  and  will  shake 
the  country  from  centre  to  circumference,  you  will  find  that  the 
little  men  will  fall  out  of  view  in  the  shaking.  The  masses  will 
rest  on  some  solid  foundation,  and  the  big  men  will  have  climbed 
to  the  top.  Of  these  latter,  one  greater  than  all  the  rest  will 
leap  forth  armed  and  equipped — the  people's  leader  in  the  con 
flict."  Little  did  I  realize  the  strength  of  the  masses  when 
united  and  fighting  for  a  common  purpose ;  and  much  less  did 
I  dream  that  the  great  leader  soon  to  be  tried  was  at  that  very 
moment  touching  my  elbow  ! — W.  H.  H. 


LINCOLN  AND  THE  KNOW-NOTHINGS. 

Among  other  things  used  against  Lincoln  in  the  campaign  of 
1860  was  the  charge  that  he  had  been  a  member  of  a  Know- 
Nothing  lodge.  When  the  charge  was  laid  at  his  door  he 
wrote  the  following  letter  to  one  of  his  confidential  political 
friends.  I  copy  from  the  original  MS.: 

[Confidential.] 

"SPRINGFIELD,  ILLS.,  July  21,  l86o. 

"  Hon.  A.  JONAS. 

"My  Dear  Sir: 

"  Yours  of  the  2oth  is  received.  I  suppose  as 
good,  or  even  better,  men  than  I  may  have  been  in  American 
or  Know-Nothing  lodges ;  but,  in  point  of  fact,  I  never  was  in 
one,  at  Quincy  or  elsewhere.  I  was  never  in  Quincy  but  one 
day  and  two  nights  while  Know-Nothing  lodges  were  in  exist 
ence,  and  you  were  with  me  that  day  and  both  those  nights. 
I  had  never  been  there  before  in  my  life  ;  and  never  afterwards, 
till  the  joint  debate  with  Douglas  in  1858.  It  was  in  1854, 
when  I  spoke  in  some  hall  there,  and  after  the  speaking  you, 


332  APPENDIX. 

with  others,  took  me  to  an  oyster  saloon,  passed  an  hour  there, 
and  you  walked  with  me  to,  and  parted  with  me  at,  the  Quincy 
House  quite  late  at  night.  I  left  by  stage  for  Naples  before 
daylight  in  the  morning,  having  come  in  by  the  same  route 
after  dark  the  evening  previous  to  the  speaking,  when  I  found 
you  waiting  at  the  Quincy  House  to  meet  me.  A  few  days 
after  I  was  there,  Richardson,  as  I  understood,  started  the 
same  story  about  my  having  been  in  a  Know-Nothing  lodge. 
When  I  heard  of  the  charge,  as  I  did  soon  after,  I  taxed  my 
recollection  for  some  incident  which  could  have  suggested  it ; 
and  I  remembered  that,  on  parting  with  you  the  last  night,  I 
went  to  the  office  of  the  Hotel  to  take  my  stage  passage  for 
the  morning,  was  told  that  no  stage  office  for  that  line  was 
kept  there,  and  that  I  must  see  the  driver  before  retiring,  to 
insure  his  calling  for  me  in  the  morning ;  and  a  servant  was 
sent  with  me  to  find  the  driver,  who,  after  taking  me  a  square 
or  two,  stopped  me,  and  stepped  perhaps  a  dozen  steps  farther, 
and  in  my  hearing  called  to  some  one,  who  answered  him, 
apparently  from  the  upper  part  of  a  building,  and  promised  to 
call  with  the  stage  for  me  at  the  Quincy  House.  I  returned 
and  went  to  bed,  and  before  day  the  stage  called  and  took 
me.  This  is  all. 

"  That  I  never  was  in  a  Know-Nothing  lodge  in  Quincy  I 
should  expect  could  be  easily  proved  by  respectable  men  who 
were  always  in  the  lodges,  and  never  saw  me  there.  An  affi 
davit  of  one  or  two  such  would  put  the  matter  at  rest. 

"  And  now,  a  word  of  caution.  Our  adversaries  think  they 
can  gain  a  point  if  they  could  force  me  to  openly  deny  the 
charge,  by  which  some  degree  of  offence  would  be  given  to  the 
Americans.  For  this  reason  it  must  not  publicly  appear  that 
I  am  paying  any  attention  to  the  charge, 

"Yours  truly, 

"  A.  LINCOLN." 


APPENDIX.  333 


LINCOLN'S  VIEWS  ON  THE  RIGHTS  OF  SUFFRAGE. 

At  one  time,  while  holding  the  office  of  attorney  for  the  city 
of  Springfield,  I  had  a  case  in  the  Supreme  Court,  which 
involved  the  validity  or  constitutionality  of  a  law  regulating  the 
matter  of  voting.  Although  a  city  case,  it  really  abridged  the 
right  of  suffrage.  Being  Lincoln's  partner  I  wanted  him  to 
assist  me  in  arguing  the  questions  involved.  He  declined  to 
do  so,  saying :  "  I  am  opposed  to  the  limitation  or  lessening  of 
the  right  of  suffrage ;  if  anything,  I  am  in  favor  of  its  extension 
or  enlargement.  I  want  to  lift  men  up— to  broaden  rather 
than  contract  their  privileges." — W.  H.  H. 


THE  BURIAL  OF  THE  ASSASSIN   BOOTH. 

"  Upon  reaching  Washington  with  the  body  of  Booth— hav 
ing  come  up  the  Potomac — it  was  at  once  removed  from  the 
tug-boat  to  a  gun-boat  that  lay  at  the  dock  at  the  Navy  Yard, 
where  it  remained  about  thirty-six  hours.  It  was  there 
examined  by  the  Surgeon-General  and  staff  and  other  officers, 
and  identified  by  half  a  score  of  persons  who  had  known  him 
well.  Toward  evening  of  the  second  day  Gen.  L.  C.  Baker, 
then  chief  of  the  •  Detective  Bureau  of  the  War  Department,' 
received  orders  from  Secretary  of  War  Stanton  to  dispose  of 
the  body.  Stanton  said,  '  Put  it  where  it  will  not  be  disturbed 
until  Gabriel  blows  his  last  trumpet.'  I  was  ordered  to  assist 
him.  The  body  was  placed  in  a  row-boat,  and,  taking  with 
us  one  trusty  man  to  manage  the  boat,  we  quietly  floated  down 
the  river.  Crowds  of  people  all  along  the  shore  were  watching 
us.  For  a  blind  we  took  with  us  a  heavy  ball  and  chain,  and 
it  was  soon  going  from  lip  to  lip  that  we  were  about  to  sink 
the  body  in  the  Potomac.  Darkness  soon  came  on,  completely 
concealing  our  movements,  and  under  its  cover  we  pulled 
slowly  back  to  the  old  Penitentiary,  which  during  the  war  was 


334  APPENDIX. 

used  as  an  arsenal.  The  body  was  then  lifted  from  the  boat 
and  carried  through  a  door  opening  on  the  river  front.  Under 
the  stone  floor  of  what  had  been  a  prison  cell  a  shallow  grave 
was  dug,  and  the  body,  with  the  United  States  blanket  for  a 
'  winding-sheet,'  was  there  interred.  There  also  it  remained  till 
Booth's  accomplices  were  hanged.  It  was  then  taken  up  and 
buried  with  his  companions  in  crime.  I  have  since  learned 
that  the  remains  were  again  disinterred  and  given  to  his  friends, 
and  that  they  now  rest  in  the  family  burial-place  in  Baltimore, 
Md."— From  MS.  of  L.  B.  Baker,  late  Lieut,  and  A.  Q.  M. 
ist  D.  C.  Cav. 


A  TRIBUTE  TO  LINCOLN  BY  A  COLLEAGUE  AT 
THE  BAR. 

"The  weird  and  melancholy  association  of  eloquence  and 
poetry  had  a  strong  fascination  for  Mr.  Lincoln's  mind.  Taste 
ful  composition,  either  of  prose  or  poetry,  which  faithfully  con 
trasted  the  realities  of  eternity  with  the  unstable  and  fickle 
fortunes  of  time,  made  a  strong  impression  on  his  mind.  In 
the  indulgence  of  this  melancholy  taste  it  is  related  of  him  that 
the  poem,  'Immortality,'  he  knew  by  rote  and  appreciated  very 
highly.  He  had  a  strange  liking  for  the  verses,  and  they  bear 
a  just  resemblance  to  his  fortune.  Mr.  Lincoln,  at  the  time  of 
his  assassination,  was  encircled  by  a  halo  of  immortal  glory 
such  as  had  never  before  graced  the  brow  of  mortal  man.  He 
had  driven  treason  from  its  capital  city,  had  slept  in  the  palace 
of  its  once  proud  and  defiant,  but  now  vanquished  leader,  and 
had  saved  his  country  and  its  accrued  glories  of  three-quarters 
of  a  century  from  destruction.  He  rode,  not  with  the  haughty 
and  imperious  brow  of  an  ancient  conqueror,  but  with  the 
placid  complacency  of  a  pure  patriot,  through  the  streets  of  the 
political  Babylon  of  modern  times.  He  had  ridden  over  battle 
fields  immortal  in  history,  when,  in  power  at  least,  he  was  the 
leader.  Having  assured  the  misguided  citizens  of  the  South 


APPENDIX.  335 

that  he  meant  them  no  harm  beyond  a  determination  to  main 
tain  the  government,  he  returned  buoyant  with  hope  to  the 
Executive  Mansion  where  for  four  long  years  he  had  been  held, 
as  it  were,  a  prisoner. 

"  Weary  with  the  stories  of  state,  he  goes  to  seek  the  relaxa 
tion  of  amusement  at  the  theatre ;  sees  the  gay  crowd  as  he 
passes  in  ;  is  cheered  and  graciously  smiled  upon  by  fair  women 
and  brave  men;  beholds  the  gorgeous  paraphernalia  of  the 
stage,  the  brilliantly  lighted  scene,  the  arched  ceiling,  with  its 
grotesque  and  inimitable  figuring  to  heighten  the  effect  and 
make  the  occasion  one  of  unalloyed  pleasure.  The  hearts  of 
the  people  beat  in  unison  with  his  over  a  redeemed  and  ran 
somed  land.  A  pause  in  the  play — a  faint  pistol  shot  is  heard. 
No  one  knows  its  significance  save  the  hellish  few  who  are  in 
the  plot.  A  wild  shriek,  such  as  murder  wrings  from  the  heart 
of  woman,  follows :  the  proud  form  of  Mr.  Lincoln  has  sunk  in 
death.  The  scene  is  changed  to  a  wild  confusion  such  as  no 
poet  can  describe,  no  painter  delineate.  Well  might  the  mur 
dered  have  said  and  oft  repeated  : 

'  'Tis  the  wink  of  an  eye,  'tis  the  draught  of  a  breath, 
From  the  blossom  of  health  to  the  paleness  of  death, 
From  the  gilded  saloon  to  the  bier  and  the  shroud, — 
Oh,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud  ? '  " 

[From  a  speech  by  Hon.  Lawrence  Weldon,  at  a  bar-meet 
ing  held  in  the  United  States  Court  at  Springfield^  Ills.,  in 
June,  1865.] 


LINCOLN   AT   FORT   MONROE. 

An  interesting  recollection  of  Lincoln  comes  from  the  pen  of 
Colonel  LeGrand  B.  Cannon,  of  New  York.  One  cannot  fail 
to  be  impressed  with  the  strength  of  the  side-light  thrown  by 
these  reminiscences  on  a  life  as  peculiar,  in  some  respects,  as  it 
was  grand  and  unique  in  others  : 

"  It  was  my  great  good  fortune,"  relates  Colonel  Cannon,  "  to 
know  something  of  Mr.  Lincoln  distinct  from  his  official  life.  In- 


336 


APPENDIX. 


tensely  in  earnest  I  entered  the  service  at  the  opening  of  the  Re 
bellion  as  a  staff  officer  in  the  regular  army  and  was  assigned  to 
the  Department  of  Virginia,  with  headquarters  at  Fort  Monroe. 
Major-General  Wool  was  in  command  of  the  Department,  and 
I  was  honored  by  him  as  his  chief -of -staff,  and  enjoyed  his 
entire  confidence.  It  was  the  only  gate  open  for  communication 
with  the  rebel  government,  and  General  Wool  was  the  agent  for 
such  intercourse. 

"  In  the  early  stages  of  the  war  there  was  a  want  of  harmony 
between  the  army  and  navy  about  us  which  seriously  embarrassed 
military  operations,  resulting  in  the  President  and  Secretaries 
Chase  and  Stanton  coming  to  Fort  Monroe  to  adjust  matters. 
Domestic  comforts  were  limited  at  headquarters,  and  the  Presi 
dent  occupied  my  room.  I  was  (in  accordance  with  military 
etiquette)  assigned  to  him  as  '  Aide-in- Waiting  '  and  Secretary. 
Although  I  had  frequently  met  the  President  as  '  Bearer  of 
Dispatches,'  I  was  not  a  little  prejudiced,  and  a  good  deal  irri 
tated,  at  the  levity  which  he  was  charged  with  indulging  in. 
In  grave  matters,  jesting  and  frolicking  seemed  to  me  shocking, 
with  such  vital  matters  at  stake,  and  I  confess  to  thinking  of 
Nero. 

"  But  all  this  changed  when  I  came  to  know  him  ;  and  I  very 
soon  discerned  that  he  had  a  sad  nature  ;  but  that,  although  a 
terrible  burden,  his  sadness  did  not  originate  in  his  great  official 
responsibilities.  I  had  heard  that  his  home  was  not  pleasant, 
but  did  not  know  that  there  was  more  beyond  it. 

" The  day  after  Mr.  Lincoln  came  to  us  he  said  to  me  :  'I 
suppose  you  have  neither  a  Bible  nor  a  copy  of  Shakespeare  here  ? ' 
I  replied  that  I  had  a  Bible,  and  the  General  had  Shakespeare, 
and  that  the  latter  never  missed  a  night  without  reading  it. 
'  Won't  he  lend  it  to  me  ?  '  inquired  the  President.  I  answered, 
'  Yes,'  and,  of  course,  obtained  it  for  him. 

"  The  day  following  he  read  by  himself  in  one  of  my  offices, 
two  hours  or  more,  entirely  alone,  I  being  engaged  in  a  connect 
ing  room  on  duty.  He  finally  interrupted  me,  inviting  me  to 
rest  while  he  would  read  to  me.  He  read  from  Macbeth,  Lear, 
and  finally,  King  John.  In  reading  the  passage  where  Con 
stance  bewails  to  the  King  the  loss  of  her  child,  I  noticed  that 


APPENDIX. 


337 


his  voice  trembled  and  he  was  deeply  moved.  Laying  the  book 
on  the  table  he  said  : 

"  •  Did  you  ever  dream  of  a  lost  friend  and  feel  that  you  were 
having  a  sweet  communion  with  that  friend,  and  yet  a  conscious 
ness  that  it  was  not  a  reality  ?  ' 

"  '  Yes/  I  replied, '  I  think  almost  any  one  may  have  had  such 
an  experience.' 

" '  So  do  I,'  he  mused ;  '  I  dream  of  my  dead  boy,  Willie, 
again  and  again.' 

"  I  shall  never  forget  the  sigh  nor  the  look  of  sorrow  that  ac 
companied  this  expression.  He  was  utterly  overcome  ;  his  great 
frame  shook,  and,  bowing  down  on  the  table,  he  wept  as  only 
such  a  man  in  the  breaking  down  of  a  great  sorrow  could  weep. 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  I  wept  in  sympathy,  and  quietly  left 
the  room  that  he  might  recover  without  restraint. 

"  Lincoln  never  again  referred  to  his  boy,  but  he  made  me  feel 
that  he  had  given  me  a  sacred  confidence,  and  he  ever  after 
treated  me  with  a  tenderness  and  regard  that  won  my  love. 

"  Again,  some  days  later,  I  had  been  absent  on  a  reconnois- 
sance,  and  returned  late  in  the  afternoon.  I  was  in  my  room 
dressing  for  dinner  (which  was  a  very  formal  affair,  as,  besides 
the  Administration,  we  had,  almost  daily,  distinguished  foreigners 
to  dine)  when  the  President  came  in.  Seeing  me  in  full  uniform 
he  said : 

" '  Why,  Colonel,  you're  fixing  up  mighty  fine.  Suppose  you 
lend  me  your  comb  and  brush,  and  I'll  put  on  a  few  touches, 
too.' 

"  I  handed  the  desired  articles  to  him  and  he  toyed  with  the 
comb  awhile  and  then  laid  it  down,  exclaiming  : 

"  '  This  thing  will  never  get  through  my  hair.  Now,  if  you 
have  such  a  thing  as  they  comb  a  horse's  tail  with,  I  believe  I 
can  use  it.'  After  a  merry  laugh,  he  continued  :  '  By  the  way, 
I  can  tell  you  a  good  story  about  my  hair.  When  I  was  nomi 
nated,  at  Chicago,  an  enterprising  fellow  thought  that  a  great 
many  people  would  like  to  see  how  Abe  Lincoln  looked,  and,  as 
I  had  not  long  before  sat  for  a  photograph,  this  fellow  having 
seen  it,  rushed  over  and  bought  the  negative.  He  at  once  got 
out  no  end  of  wood-cuts,  and,  so  active  was  their  circulation, 


338 


APPENDIX. 


they  were  selling  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  Soon  after  they 
reached  Springfield  I  heard  a  boy  crying  them  for  sale  on  the 
streets.  '  Here's  your  likeness  of  Abe  Lincoln  ! '  he  shouted. 
'  Buy  one ;  price  only  two  shillings !  Will  look  a  good  deal 
better  when  he  gets  his  hair  combed ! ' " 


INDEX. 


ARMSTRONG,  HANNAH.  Applies 
to  Lincoln  to  defend  her  son, 
ii,  27,  28. 

Armstrong,  Jack.  Wrestles  with 
Lincoln,  i,  74,  75. 

Baker,  Edward  D.  Speech  in 
Springfield  church,  i,  183  ; 
finds  a  friend  in  Lincoln,  186, 
187  ;  Congressional  aspirations, 
255,  259  ;  elected  to  Congress, 
257  ;  introduces  Lincoln  at  his 
inauguration,  ii,  204. 

Baker,  L.  B.  Relates  details  of 
Booth's  burial,  ii,  333,  334. 

Bedell,  Grace.  Relates  incident 
of  Lincoln  and  his  whiskers, 
ii,  197,  198. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward.  Discourse 
on  death  of  Lincoln,  ii,  282. 

Bissell,  William  H.  Nominated 
Governor  of  Illinois,  ii,  52  ; 
elected,  58. 

Black  Hawk  War.  Account  of, 
i,  83,  84. 

Bliss,  J.  S.  Relates  incident  of 
visit  to  Lincoln,  ii,  180,  181. 

Bloomington.  Convention  and 
call  for  same,  ii,  329,  330. 

Bogue,  Captain  Vincent.  Brings 
the  Talisman  to  Illinois,  i,  77, 
78. 

Booth,  John  Wilkes.  Assassin 
ates  Lincoln,  ii,  273-277 ;  es 
cape,  capture,  and  death  of, 
284-289  ;  burial  of,  333,  334. 

Browning,  O.  H.  Speaks  in 
Springfield  church,  i,  183. 


Buchanan,  James.  Present  at 
Lincoln's  inauguration,  ii,  203, 
204. 

Butterfield,  Justin  N.  Appoint 
ed  Commissioner  of  Land  Of 
fice,  i,  301. 

Calhoun,  John.  Appoints  Lin 
coln  deputy  surveyor,  i,  IIQ- 
112  ;  speaks  in  church,  183. 

Calk,  William.  Emigrates  from 
Virginia  to  Kentucky,  i,  5. 

Campbell,  A.  Contributes  to 
Lincoln's  campaign  expenses, 
ii,  71. 

Cannon,  Le  Grand  B.  Relates 
history  of  Lincoln's  visit  to  Fort 
Monroe,  ii,  335-338. 

Cartwright,  Peter.  Competes 
with  Lincoln  for  congressional 
honors,  i,  258,  259. 

Chicago.  Convention  in,  ii,  171, 
172. 

Crawford,  Elizabeth.  Recollects 
Lincoln's  early  poetry,  i,  44 ; 
describes  school  exercises,  44- 

45- 

Crawford,  Josiah  ("  Blue  Nose  "). 
Loans  Lincoln  Weems's  "  Life 
of  Washington,"  i,  37. 

Davis,  David.  Eulogy  of,  on 
Lincoln,  ii,  4,  5  ;  recalls  Lin 
coln's  religious  views,  151  ;  ap 
pointed  judge  of  Supreme 
Court,  214,  215  ;  opinion  of 
Bancroft's  eulogy  on  Lincoln, 
227  ;  counsels  with  Lincoln 


340 


INDEX. 


regarding  the  military  trials  in 
the  North,  266. 

Decatur.  Convention  in,  ii,  170, 
171. 

Defrees,  John  D.  Recalls  Lin 
coln's  views  on  the  recognition 
of  God  in  the  Constitution,  ii, 

154- 

Dickey,  T.  Lyle.  Relates  inci 
dent  of  Lincoln's  utterances  at 
the  Bloomington  convention, 
ii,  68. 

Dickson,  William  M.  Account 
of  Lincoln's  visit  to  Cincinnati, 
ii,  22-25. 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.  First  meet 
ing  of,  with  Lincoln,  i,  154 ; 
elected  to  the  Legislature,  164; 
debates  in  Springfield  church, 
183  ;  pays  his  addresses  to 
Mary  Todd,  196,  197  ;  speaks 
at  State  Fair,  ii,  36  ;  his  breech 
of  agreement  with  Lincoln,  43; 
speech  at  reception  in  Chicago, 
70  ;  accepts  Lincoln's  chal 
lenge,  71,  72  ;  contrasted  with 
Lincoln,  73  ;  in  the  debate 
with  Lincoln,  78-82  ;  speaks 
at  Beardstown,  96 ;  answers 
Lincoln  at  Freeport,  no  ;  last 
debate  at  Alton,  124;  article 
in  Harper's  Magazine ',  160  ; 
speaks  in  campaign  of  1860, 
174  ;  last  meeting  with  Lin 
coln,  249. 

Dresser,  Rev.  Charles  N.  Mar 
ries  Abraham  Lincoln  and 
Mary  Todd,  i,  214. 

Dresser,  Thomas  W.  Attends 
Mrs.  Lincoln  in  her  last  ill 
ness,  ii,  144,  145. 

Dubois,  Jesse  K.  Recalls  Lin 
coln's  "  House-divided-against- 
itself  '  speech,  ii,  66. 

Duncan,  John.  Aids  Lincoln  in 
capture  of  ground-hog,  i,  15. 

Edwards,  Ninian  W.  In  the  de 
bate  with  Early,  i,  161;  elected 
to  the  Legislature,  163. 


Edwards,  Mrs.  Ninian  W.  Vis 
its  the  Lincolns  in  Washing 
ton,  ii,  218,  219. 

Elkin,  David.  Preaches  funeral 
of  Lincoln's  mother,  i,  25. 

English,  R.  W.  Acts  as  mutual 
friend  in  Lincoln-Shields  duel, 
i,  241. 

Fell,  Jesse  W.  Applies  to  Lin 
coln  for  autobiography,  i,  3, 4  ; 
his  opinion  of  Lincoln's  re 
ligion,  ii,  152-156. 

Francis,  Simeon.  Wife  of,  ef 
fects  reconciliation  between 
Lincoln  and  Mary  Todd,  i, 
212. 

Gardner,  Henry  J.  Meets  Lin 
coln,  ii,  289,  290. 

Gentry,  Allen.  Accompanies  Lin 
coln  to  New  Orleans  on  flat- 
boat,  i,  54. 

Gentryville.  Life  and  social  cus 
toms  in,  i,  54,  55  ;  superstition 
of  people  in,  56,  57. 

Giddings,  Joshua  R.  In  Con 
gress  with  Lincoln,  i,  277  ;  let 
ter  from,  to  Lincoln,  ii,  55. 

Gillespie,  Joseph.  Gives  account 
of  senatorial  election  of  1854, 
ii,  46. 

Gollaher,  Austin.  Rescues  Lin 
coln  from  drowning,  i,  15. 

Graham,  Mentor.  Meets  Lin 
coln  for  first  time,  i,  79  ;  Anne 
Rutledge  attends  school  of, 

122. 

Greene,  William  G.  Assists  Lin 
coln  in  Offut's  store,  i,  71  ; 
sells  Lincoln's  store  to  Rad- 
ford  &  Bei'ry,  98,  99. 

Grimshaw,  Jackson.  Recollec 
tions  by,  of  the  first  meeting  to 
propose  Lincoln  for  the  presi 
dency,  ii,  163. 

Hall,  James.  Meeting  of,  with 
Denton  Offut  in  Baltimore,  i, 

76,  77- 


INDEX. 


341 


Hanks,  Abraham.  Journeys  with 
William  Calk  to  Kentucky,  i,  5. 

Hanks,  Dennis.  Birth  of,  i,  10  ; 
accompanies  the  Sparrows  to 
Indiana  from  Kentucky,  18 ; 
his  description  of  Thomas  Lin 
coln's  farm,  18, 19  ;  hunts  game 
with  Abe,  19  ;  visits  the  Presi 
dent  in  Washington,  ii,  227- 
230. 

Hanks,  John.  Welcomes  the 
Lincoln  family  to  Illinois,  i, 
60 ;  helps  Abe  split  rails,  61 ; 
accompanies  Lincoln  to  New 
Orleans,  63-65. 

Hanks,  Nancy.  Her  descent,  i, 
3  ;  marriage  to  Thomas  Lin 
coln,  5  ;  description  of  her  per 
son,  10 ;  mental  qualities,  10, 
ii  ;  her  death,  24,  25. 

Hardin,  John  J.  Mutual  friend 
in  Lincoln-Shields  duel,  i,  241  ; 
nominated  Congressman,  255. 

Hay,  John.  Accompanies  Lin 
coln  to  Washington,  ii,  195  ; 
his  account  of  Lincoln's  life  at 
the  White  House,  224-227. 

Haycroft,  Samuel.  Describes 
courtship  and  marriage  of 
Thomas  Lincoln  and  Sarah 
Johnston,  i,  26. 

Hazel,  Caleb.  Lincoln  attends 
school  of,  i,  13. 

Head,  Rev.  Jesse.  Marries  Thom 
as  Lincoln  and  Nancy  Hanks, 

i>4- 
Herndon,  Archer  G.     Elected  to 

Legislature,  i,  163. 
Herndon,  Rowan.    With  Lincoln 

pilots  the  Talisman,  i,  81  ;  sells 

his  store   interest  to  Lincoln, 

97- 

Herndon,  William  H.  Meets 
Lincoln  for  the  first  time,  i, 
172 ;  leaves  the  Jacksonville 
college,  178  ;  clerks  in  Speed's 
store,  179 ;  meets  Mary  Todd, 
195  ;  forms  partnership  with 
Lincoln,  252  ;  discusses  slavery 
with  Lincoln  in  law-office,  ii, 


32,  33  ;  writes  editorials  in 
Springfield  Journal,  36-38  ;  re 
calls  the  article  in  the  Conserv 
ative,  38-40  ;  advises  Lincoln 
to  avoid  the  Abolitionists,  40, 
41 ;  describes  Lincoln  at  the 
Bloomington  convention,  53, 
54  ;  visits  New  York  and  New 
England  in  Lincoln's  interest, 
61  ;  the  Boston  letter  to  Lin 
coln,  63,  64  ;  takes  part  in  the 
campaign  of  1860,  175  ;  visits 
Lincoln  in  Washington,  216- 
218  ;  recalls  Lincoln's  idea  of 
war,  330,  331. 

Hill,  Samuel.  Burns  Lincoln's 
book  on  religion,  ii,  149,  150. 

Hitt,  Robert  R.  Reports  Lin 
coln-Douglas  debates  for  the 
Chicago  Tribune,  ii,  88,  89. 

Holland,  Dr.  J.  G.  Visits  Spring 
field,  ii,  292,  293. 

Irwin,  B.  F.  Testimony  of,  re 
garding  truce  between  Lincoln 
and  Douglas,  ii,  292,  293. 

Jayne,  Julia  M.  Attends  Mary 
Todd  at  her  wedding,  i,  214  ; 
assists  in  writing  the  "  Rebec 
ca"  letters,  219-229. 

Johnson,  Andrew.  Elected  Vice- 
President  with  Lincoln,  ii,  265. 

Johnston,  John.  Accompanies 
Lincoln  to  New  Orleans,  i,  65, 
66. 

Johnston,  Matilda.  Incident  of, 
with  her  step-brother  Abe,  i, 
30,  31- 

Lamborn,    Josiah.       Speaks    in 

Springfield  church,  i,  183. 
Lamm,  Ward  H.     Accompanies 

Lincoln  to  Washington,  ii,  195 

-200. 
Letters.     Scripps  to  Herndon,  i, 

2  ;    Claggett   to    Herndon,    7  ; 

Pirtte  to  Herndon,  7  ;  Helm  to 

Herndon,  11,12;  J.  R.toW.H. 

Herndon,  70,  71 ;  W.  L.  Wil- 


342 


INDEX. 


son  to  Herndon,  88 ;  George 
W.  Harrison  to  Herndon,  89- 
91 ;  Joseph  S.  Wilson  to  Hern 
don,  92 ;  Mary  S.  Vineyard 
(nee  Owens)  to  Herndon,  139- 
141 ;  Lincoln  to  Mary  S.  Owens, 
143-146  ;  Lincoln  to  Mrs.  O. 
H.  Browning,  148-151;  Lin 
coln  to  editor  Sangamon  Jour 
nal,  157  ;  Lincoln  to  Col.  Rob 
ert  Allen,  159,  160;  Speed  to 
Herndon,  204 ;  Lincoln  to 
Speed,  205-211  ;  James  H. 
Matheney  and  Thomas  W. 
Dresser  to  Jesse  W.  Weik,  214  ; 
"Mr.  Printer"  from  "Rebec 
ca  ,"  219-228 ;  John  D. 

Whiteside  to  editor  Sangamon 
Journal,  229-233 ;  E.  H.  Mer- 
ryman  to  editor  Journal,  234- 

245  ;   Lincoln   to   Speed,   245, 

246  ;  Lincoln  to  R.  S.  Thomas, 
253  ;  Lincoln  to  Herndon,  267 
-272,  278  ;   Lincoln  to  Office- 
Seeker,    279,    280;     Elizabeth 
Sawyer   to   J.  W.  Weik,  301  ; 
Lincoln  to  Speed,  313  ;  Lincoln 
to  Justice  McLean,  314  ;  Lin 
coln  to  J.  M.  Brockman,  324  ; 
Lincoln    to    H.   Keeling,  326 ; 
Grant   Goodrich   to   Herndon, 
330,  331  ;  Lord  to  Herndon,  ii, 
14,    15  ;    John    H.    Bryant   to 
Herndon,  43  ;  Lincoln  to  Rob 
ert    Mosely,    44 ;    Lincoln    to 
Jacob    Harding,    45 ;     Joseph 
Gillespie  to  Herndon,  46  ;  Lin 
coln  to  Speed,  49  ;  Joshua  R. 
Giddings  to  Lincoln,  55  ;  Lin 
coln  to  Harrison  Maltby,  57  ; 
Horace    Greeley  to    Herndon, 
60 ;  Lyman  Trumbull  to  Lin 
coln,  61,  62  ;  Herndon  to  Lin 
coln,  63,  64;  T.  Lyle  Dickey 
to  Herndon,  68  ;  A.  Campbell 
to  Lincoln  and  to  J.  W.  Weik, 
71  ;  Lincoln  to  J.  O.  Cunning 
ham,  78 ;    Horace   Greeley  to 
Lincoln  and  to  Herndon,  82  ; 
Lincoln  to  Henry  and  to  As- 


bury,  83;  Horace  White  to 
Herndon,  86,  87  ;  Lincoln  to 
John  E.  Rosette,  139  ;  Thomas 
W.  Dresser  to  Jesse  W.  Weik, 
144,  145  ;  Joseph  Gillespie  to 
Herndon,  145  ;  John  G.  Nicolay 
to  Herndon,  152 ;  Jesse  W. 
Fell  to  Ward  Lamon,  152-155; 
John  D.  Defrees  to  Herndon, 
154 ;  Lincoln  to  Norman  B. 
Judd,  157;  Whitney  to  Hern 
don,  and  Lincoln  to  Morris, 
158,  159 ;  Lincoln  to  Delahay, 
161,  162  ;  Lincoln  to  Pickett, 
162  ;  Grimshaw  to  Herndon, 
163 ;  Lincoln  to  Kansas  dele 
gate,  167  -  169  ;  Lincoln  to 
George  Ashmun,  176 ;  J.  S. 
Bliss  to  Herndon,  180,  181 ; 
Lincoln  to  J.  R.  Giddings,  180 
-182  ;  Henry  Wilson  to  Hern 
don,  184-187;  Lincoln  to  his 
step-mother,  191  ;  Lincoln  to 
Grace  Bedell,  197  ;  Lincoln  to 
L.  Montgomery  Bond  and  to 
Samuel  Haycroft,  199 ;  Lin 
coln  to  Calvin  Truesdale  and 
to  Washington  Talcott,  208, 
209  ;  Lincoln  to  Herndon,  210  ; 
Leonard  Swett  to  Herndon, 
212-215  J  Mrs.  Mary  Lincoln 
to  Herndon,  220,  221  ;  John 
Hay  to  Herndon,  224-227  ; 
David  Davis  to  Herndon,  227  ; 
Speed  to  Herndon,  231-238  ; 
Leonard  Swett  to  Herndon, 
238-248 ;  WTiitney  to  Hern 
don,  249-251  ;  Robert  L.  Wil 
son  to  Herndon, 25 1-253;  James 
C.  Conkling  to  Jesse  W.  Weik, 
259,  260  ;  Lincoln  to  James  C. 
Conkling,  260-265;  Lincoln  to 
General  Sherman,  267,  268  ;  J. 
M.  Ashley  to  Lincoln,  and  Lin 
coln  to  Ashley,  269  ;  Robert 
Dale  Owen  to  Herndon,  315  ; 
Lincoln  to  his  father,  321  ;  to 
John  D.  Johnston,  322,  323, 
324-326  ;  Lincoln  to  A.  Jonas, 
331,  332. 


IfrDEX. 


343 


Lincoln,  Abraham  (President's 
grandfather).  Emigrates  from 
Virginia  to  Kentucky,  i,  4 ; 
killed  by  Indians,  6. 

Lincoln,  Abraham.     Birth  of,  i, 

1  ;   modesty  regarding   origin, 
i ;  interview  with  J.  L.  Scripps, 

2  ;  ride  with  Herndon  to  Me- 
nard  County  in  1850,  3  ;  refer 
ence  to  his  mother,  3  ;  record 
in  Bible,  3,  4 ;  the  coon  story, 
19,  20 ;  at  Dorsey's  school,  32, 

33  ;   at  Crawford's  school,  33, 

34  ;  school  essay,  34  ;  gallantry 
to   Kate    Roby,    35  ;    boyhood 
books,  36,  37  ;  early  poetry,  37, 
38  ;  methods  of  study,  39,  40 ; 
intellectual  traits,  41  ;  early  at 
tempts  at  public  speaking,  42  ; 
participates  in   the   Johnston- 
Grigsby  fight,  43  ;  marriage  of 
sister  Sarah,  45  ;  writes  a  wed 
ding  song,  46  ;  attends  court  at 
Booneville,  49 ;  injury  at  Gor 
don's  mill,  50,  51  ;  writes  essays 
on   Government  and  Temper 
ance,  52  ;  borrows  law-books  of 
John  Pitcher,  52,  53  ;  first  flat- 
boat  trip  to  New  Orleans,  54  ; 
removes  to  Illinois,  59  ;  his  pet 
dog,  59  ;  splits  rails  with  John 
Hanks,  61  ;  speech  in  answer 
to   Posey,  62 ;   meets   Denton 
Offut,  63  ;  aids  in  building  and 
launching    the    boat,    63,   64 ; 
starts   down    stream    for   New 
Orleans,  65  ;  the  delay  at  New 
Salem,  65  ;  loads  hogs,  66  ;  ar 
rives  in  New  Orleans,  67  ;  wit 
nesses  sale  of  slaves,  67 ;   re 
turns  to  Illinois,  67  ;  reappears 
in   New   Salem,    69,  70 ;    the 
lizard  story,  71  ;  clerk  in  Offut's 
store,    71,    72  ;    wrestles    with 
Jack  Armstrong,  74  ;  studies  in 
the   store,  75,   76  ;    meets   the 
Talisman   at    Beardstown,  78; 
assists      Rowan     Herndon    as 
pilot  of  the    Talisman,  80 ;   a 
piece  of  floating  driftwood,  83  ; 

46 


captain  of  company  in  Black 
Hawk  War,  84, 85 ;  his  company, 
85,  86  ;  under  arrest,  86  ;  de 
fends  the  Indians,  87  ;  wrestles 
with  Thompson,  87,  88  ;  inci 
dents  of  the  campaign,  88-90  ; 
re-enlists  as  a  private  soldier, 

90,  91  ;  returns  to  New  Salem, 

91,  92  ;  candidate  for  the  Legis 
lature,  93  ;  the  canvas,  94,  95  ; 
first   political   speech,   95,  96 ; 
advocates  improvement  of  San- 
gam  on  River,  96;  defeated,  96; 
forms  partnership  with  Berry, 
97  ;   their   operations,    98,  99; 
failure,  100  ;  begins  the  study 
of  law,  101  ;  habits  of  study, 
102,  103  ;  love  for  story-telling, 
104,    105  ;    more   poetry,   106 ; 
what  A.  Y.  Ellis  recollected  of 
him,  106,  107  ;  referee  in  the 
McNabb  cock-fight,  109  ;  dep 
uty  surveyor  under  John  Cal- 
houn,  HO-II2  ;  appointed  post 
master    at    New   Salem,    114; 
property   sold    to   satisfy   Van 
Bergen    judgment,    114 ;    aids 
Chandler,    115,    116;    feats   of 
strength,  116,  117  ;  elected  to 
the  Legislature,  117, 118;  courts 
Anne  Rutledge,  119-126;  her 
death,    129 ;   its   effect   on  his 
mind,  130, 131;  Bowlin  Green's 
kindness,  131  ;  learns  the  lines, 
"O,  why  should  the  spirit  of 
mortal  be  proud?"  131  ;  letter 
to  Dr.  Drake,  132  ;  meets  Mary 
Owens,    134,    135  ;    courtship, 
137  ;  letters    to   her,  142-146  ; 
letter  to  Mrs.  O.  H.  Browning, 
148-152;  first  term  in  the  Leg 
islature,  153;  first  meeting  with 
Stephen  A.  Douglas,  154  ;  his 
part   of    the   legislation,    155  ; 
deputy  surveyor  under  Thomas 
M.  Neale,  155  ;   candidate  for 
the  Legislature  again,  156;  the 
hand -bill     favors    "Woman's 
Rights,"    157 ;    letter   to   Col. 
Robert   Allen,    159,    160 ;    the 


344 


INDEX. 


canvass,  160,  161  ;  reply  to 
George  Forgner,  162,  163 ; 
elected  and  leads  his  ticket, 
163  ;  one  of  the  "  Long  Nine,' 
164 ;  champions  internal  im 
provements,  165-167  ;  secures 
removal  of  the  capital  to  Spring 
field,  167,  168  ;  signs  the  pro 
test  with  Dan  Stone,  169-171  ; 
begins  law  practice^with  John 
T.  Stuart,  173,  174  ;  how  their 
office  looked,  175;  finds  a  friend 
in  Joshua  F.  Speed,  176;  boards 
with  William  Butler,  176  ;  in 
Speed's  store,  178 ;  poetry, 
1 80  ;  speech  before  Young 
Men's  Lyceum,  181;  speech  in 
Presbyterian  church,  183;  nomi 
nated  Speaker  in  the  Legisla 
ture,  184  ;  stumps  the  district 
with  Dick  Taylor,  185,  186 ; 
defends  Edward  D.  Baker,  186, 
187  ;  caricatures  Jesse  B. 
Thomas,  188,  189;  elector  on 
the  Whig  Presidential  ticket, 
189;  again  elected  to  the  Legis 
lature,  190  ;  caucus  nominee  of 
Whigs  for  Speaker,  190  ;  meets 
Mary  Todd,  195  ;  the  midnight 
of  gloom,  201 ;  goes  with  Speed 
to  Kentucky,  202,  203  ;  letters 
to  Speed,  205-211 ;  the  reconcil 
iation  at  the  Francis  House,  2 12, 
213  ;  the  Shields  letters  in  the 
Springfield  Journal,  219-229; 
the  duel  with  Shields,  229-246; 
delivers  a  temperance  speech, 
246-248  ;  meets  Martin  Van 
Buren,  248,  249  ;  becomes  law 
partner  of  Stephen  T.  Logan, 
250  ;  congressional  aspirations, 
265;  dissolves  partnership  with 
Logan  and  takes  in  William  H. 
Herndon,  252  ;  letters  to  Speed 
and  Thomas,  253-255  ;  speaks 
in  Indiana  during  campaign  of 
1844,  256;  nominated  for  Con 
gress  against  Peter  Cartwright, 
258  ;  elected,  258,  259  ;  takes 
seat,  260 ;  letter  to  Herndon, 


261  ;  introduces  "  Spot "  reso 
lutions,  263 ;  opposes  Mexican 
war— letters  to  Herndon,  263- 
272  ;  speaks  in  Congress,  273- 
276 ;  stumping  through  New 
England,  276,  277;  begins  cam 
paign  in  Massachusetts,  281  ; 
speaks  in  Boston,  Chelsea,  Ded- 
ham,  etc.,  282-286;  meets  Gov 
ernor  Seward,  287  ;  speaks  in 
Lowell,  288,  289  ;  meets  Gov 
ernor  Levi  Lincoln,  289,  290  ; 
his  memory,  291  ;  how  he  im 
pressed  the  Dedham  people, 
292,  293  ;  early  married  life, 

295,  296 ;    at   Niagara    Falls, 

296,  297  ;  invents  apparatus  to 
lift   vessels    over    shoals,   298, 
299;  aspirant  for  Commissioner 
of  Land   Office,  300 ;   offered 
territorial    posts   by   President 
Taylor,    302 ;     an    interesting 
stage  ride  to  Washington,  302- 
306;  returns  to  the  law,  307, 
308  ;  life  on   the  circuit,  310- 
331  ;  methods  of  study,  ii,  1-7  ; 
his  mind,   8;    speech    in    the 
Wright  case,  9-11;  defends  the 
ladies,  12,  13  ;  incidents  on  the 
circuit,  14-20  ;  suit  against  the 
Illinois  Central  Railroad,2O,2i; 
meets  Edwin  M.  Stan  ton,  22- 
25;  defends  William  Armstrong, 
26-28  ;    last    lawsuit,   28,  29 ; 
speaks  before  the  Scott  Club, 
30 ;  talks  with  John  T.  Stuart, 
32 ;   reads   political  literature, 
32,  33  ;    antislavery  ideas,  35. 
36  ;  answers   Douglas,  36-38  ; 
condemns  article  in  the  Conserv 
ative,  38,  39  ;   escapes  from  the 
Abolitionists,  40,   41  ;   follows 
Douglas,  42 ;   election  to,  and 
resignation   from,  the  Legisla 
ture,  44  ;  letter  to  newspaper 
man,  45  ;  candidate  for  U.  S. 
Senator,    46 ;    appears    before 
the  Governor  of  Illinois  in  be 
half  of  a  negro,  47,  48  ;  speaks 
in  behalf  of  the  Free-Soil  cause, 


INDEX. 


345 


48,  49  ;  an  interesting  letter  to 
Speed,  50;  speaks  at  the  Bloom- 
ington  convention,  52,  53  ;  also 
at  the  Springfield  ratification, 
54,  55  ;  stumps  the  State,  55  ; 
demands  for  him  from  out 
side,  56  ;  counteracts  the  Fill- 
more  movement,  57  ;  growth 
of  his  political  reputation,  59  ; 
feels  the  injustice  of  Greeley's 
treatment,  60 ;  his  dejection, 
6 1  ;  reads  Theodore  Parker's 
sermons,  65  ;  nominated  U.  S. 
Senator,  65, 66;  prepares  house- 
divided  -  against  -  itself  speech, 
66;  reads  to  friends  in  the  State 
Library,  68,  69  ;  delivers  it  in 
the  convention,  69  ;  challenges 
Douglas,  70,  71  ;  applies  to  A. 
Campbell  for  funds,  71  ;  de 
scription  on  the  stump,  74-77  ; 
real  position  on  the  slavery 
question,  78,  79 ;  incidents  of 
debate  and  results,  80-82  ;  let 
ters  from  Greeley,  82  ;  letters 
to  Henry  and  Asbury,  83  ;  ac 
companied  during  debates  by 
Horace  White,  88;  how  he  de 
livered  house-divided-against- 
itself  speech,  92 ;  abuse  by 
Douglas,  102,  103  ;  described 
by  correspondent  New  York 
Evening  Post,  105-107  ;  con 
ference  at  Freeport,  109  ;  meets 
Owen  Lovejoy,  112  ;  defines 
Popular  Sovereignty,  113,  114; 
speaks  at  Edwardsville,  114- 
118;  sees  Donati's  comet,  119  ; 
further  speeches,  119-125  ;  his 
domestic  delinquency,  133-135; 
family  government,  136,  137  ; 
curious  letter  to  Rosette,  139  ; 
carries  his  burdens  in  silence, 
139-142  ;  part  played  by  his 
wife,  142  - 144  ;  superstitious 
nature,  145,  146  ;  his  estimate  \ 
of  biography,  147  ;  writes  a  , 
book  against  the  Christian  re 
ligion,  149,  150  ;  testimony  of 
friends  regarding  his  religious  j 


views,  150-155;  financial  result 
of  debate  with  Douglas,  157, 
158  ;  attempts  to  lecture,  158, 
159;  enters  campaign  in  Ohio, 
159,  1 60  ;  visits  Kansas,  161  ; 
meeting  of  friends  to  propose 
him  for  the  presidency,  162, 
163;  delivers  Cooper  Institute 
speech,  163-165  ;  speaks  in 
New  England,  166  ;  fastens  his 
eye  on  Seward,  167  ;  writes  in 
teresting  letters  to  delegate, 
168,  169  ;  attends  Decatur  con 
vention,  170,  171  ;  receives 
news  of  his  nomination,  173  ; 
accepts,  173,  174  ;  in  the  cam 
paign,  174,  175  ;  occupies  room 
in  State- House,  176  ;  casting 
his  ballot,  177;  struggles  with 
office-seekers,  179,  180  ;  ratifies 
the  agreements  made  at  Chica 
go,  1 8 1,  182  ;  forms  his  cabi 
net,  183,  184  ;  visits  Chicago 
and  meets  Speed,  187 ;  pre 
pares  inaugural  address,  188, 
189;  parts  from  his  step-mother, 
190  ;  last  days  in  Springfield, 
192  ;  last  interview  with  law 
partner,  192-195;  departs  from 
Springfield,  195  ;  journey  to 
Washington,  197-201  ;  inau 
gurated  President,  202-207  ;  in 
the  White  House,  208  ;  letters 
to  friends,  208-210  ;  disposes 
of  the  claims  of  David  Davis, 
211-215  ;  life  in  the  White 
House,  224-227  ;  recollections 
of  the  President  by  Joshua  F. 
Speed,  234-239 ;  by  Leonard 
Swett,  239-248;  meets  Douglas 
for  the  last  time,  249  ;  his  self- 
reliance,  250  ;  how  he  viewed 
the  battle  of  Bull  Run,  251- 
255  ;  comprehends  the  scope  of 
the  war,  256  ;  issues  the  Eman 
cipation  Proclamation, 257-259; 
letter  to  J.  C.  Conkling,  260- 
265  ;  re -nominated  and  re- 
elected,  265-268  ;  second  inau 
gural,  269, 270  ;  visits  the  army, 


34^ 


INDEX. 


270,  271  ;  views  the  dawn  of 
peace,  272,  273  ;  the  assassi 
nation,  274-278 ;  funeral  in 
Springfield,  282,  283  ;  effect  of 
his  death,  289,  290  ;  his  place 
in  history,  290, 291  ;  description 
by  Dr.  J.  G.  Holland,  292- 
294  ;  by  Herndon,  294-297  ; 
theory  of  his  melancholy,  297  ; 
recalled  by  a  neighbor,  298, 
299  ;  analysis  of  mind  and 
character,  299-318 ;  the  man 
for  the  hour,  320 ;  how  he 
answered  the  Know-Nothing 
charge,  331,  332  ;  views  on  the 
rights  of  suffrage,  333  ;  his  visit 
to  Fort  Monroe,  335-338. 

Lincoln,  Josiah.  Present  at  death 
of  his  father,  i,  6. 

Lincoln,  Levi  (ex-Governor  of 
Massachusetts).  Meets  Abra 
ham  Lincoln,  ii,  289,  290. 

Lincoln,  Mary  (nde  Todd).  Birth 
and  descent,  i,  192,  193  ;  meets 
Abraham  Lincoln,  195 ;  re 
ceives  addresses  of  Stephen  A. 
Douglas,  195,  196 ;  also  of 
Lincoln,  198,  200 ;  disappoint 
ed  by  Lincoln,  200,  201  ;  the 
reconciliation,  212,  213 ;  the 
marriage,  214,  215  ;  with  Julia 
Jayne  writes  "  Rebecca "  let 
ters,  219-229  ;  accompanies 
husband  to  Washington,  272  ; 
contrasted  with  her  husband, 
ii,  136,  137  ;  married  life,  137- 
her  conduct  and  death, 


141 
144 

221 


letter  to   Herndon,  220, 
life  at  the  White  House, 
221-224. 

Lincoln,  Nancy.  See  Nancy 
Hanks. 

Lincoln,  Sarah.  Birth  of,  i,  4  ; 
appearance  and  disposition,  13  ; 
marries  Aaron  Grigsby,  13  ;  ac 
companies  her  brother  Abe  to 
school,  13  ;  death,  46. 

Lincoln,  Sarah  (Sarah  Bush  John 
ston).     Marries    Thomas    Lin-  I 
coin,  i,  26  ;  cares  for  Thomas  ' 


Lincoln's  children,  27,  28  ; 
death,  29. 

Lincoln,  Thomas.  Description 
of,  i,  8  ;  religious  belief,  8,  9  ; 
occupation  and  traits,  9  ;  dis 
satisfied  with  Kentucky,  15  ; 
moves  to  Indiana,  16,  17  ;  how 
the  family  lived,  20,  21  ;  his 
widowerhood,  25  ;  marries 
Sarah  Bush  Johnston,  26;  re 
moves  to  Illinois,  58,  59  ;  death 
of,  6 1,  62. 

Linder,  U.  F.  Speaks  with 
Douglas  at  Charleston,  ii,  122, 
123. 

Littlefield,  John  H.  Relates  ex 
periences  as  law  student  in 
Lincoln  &  Herndon's  office,  i, 

3I5-3I9- 
Logan,    Stephen    T.       Becomes 

law  partner  of  Lincoln,  i,  250  ; 

has    congressional   aspirations, 

251  ;  style  of  dress  exposed  by 

Lincoln,  ii,  26. 
Lovejoy,    Owen.      Speaks    with 

Lincoln  at  Paris  lies,  ii,  112. 

Matheney,  James  H.  Recollects 
some  Lincoln  poetry,  i,  179, 
1 80  ;  recalls  incidents  of  Hoff 
man's  Row,  1 80  ;  attends  Lin 
coln  as  best  man  at  his  wed 
ding,  214. 

Mather,  Thomas.  Visits  Gen 
eral  Scott  in  the  interest  of 
Lincoln,  ii,  202,  203. 

McClellan,  George  B.  Defeated 
by  Lincoln  for  President,  ii, 
265-266. 

McDonald,  Joseph  E.  Recalls 
the  Wyant  case,  ii,  13  ;  visits 
Lincoln  at  the  White  House, 
266,  267. 

McGaughey,  Edward  W.  Com 
petitor  of  Lincoln  for  Com 
missioner  of  Land  Office,  i, 
300. 

McNamar,  John.  Helps  Lin 
coln  prepare  handbill,  i,  93  ; 
courts  Anne  Rutledge,  123 ; 


INDEX. 


347 


recollections  of  Anne  Rut- 
ledge,  127. 

Merryman,  E.  H.  Lincoln's  sec 
ond  in  the  duel  with  Shields, 
i,  234  ;  his  account  of  the  duel, 
234-245. 

Minier,  George  W.  Incident  of 
the  circuit,  ii,  327,  328. 

Nelson,  Thomas  H.  Rides  in 
stage  with  Lincoln,  i,  303- 
306. 

New  Salem.  Description  of,  i, 
68,  69  ;  society  of,  107,  108. 

Nicolay,  John  G.  Letter  of,  as 
to  Lincoln's  religion,  ii,  152  ; 
appointed  Lincoln's  private 
secretary.  176;  accompanies 
him  to  Washington.  195. 

Offut,  Denton.     Meets   Lincoln, 

i,  63  ;  business  ventures  in  New 

Salem,  72,  74  ;  disappears,  76 ; 

reappears  in  Baltimore,  77. 
Oliphant,  E.  P.     Celebrates  the 

arrival  of  the  Talisman,  i,  79. 

80. 
Owens,  Mary  S.     Meets  Lincoln, 

i,    134  ;    described,    135,    136 ; 

letters  to  Herndon,  139-141. 

Pierce,  Edward  L.  Relates  in 
cidents  of  Lincoln  campaign  in 
Massachusetts,  ii,  281,  294. 

Pinkerton,  Allan.  Unearths  con 
spiracy  to  prevent  Lincoln's 
safe  journey  to  Washington,  ii, 
201,  202. 

Pitcher,  John.  Loans  Lincoln 
law-books,  i,  52. 

Rickard,  Sarah.  Is  courted  by 
Lincoln,  i,  216. 

Riney,  Zachariah.  Lincoln  at 
tends  school  of,  i,  13. 

Robey,  Kate.  In  school  with 
Lincoln,  i,  38 ;  watches  the 
moon,  39. 

Rutledge,  Anne.  Parentage  and 
descent,  i,  120 ;  the  affair  with 


John  McNamar,  120-126;  de 
votion  of  Lincoln  to,  128;  death, 
129. 

Scripps,  J.  L.  Narrates  particu 
lars  of  interview  with  Lincoln, 
i,  2. 

Sewarcl,  William  H.  Meets  Lin 
coln  in  Boston,  ii,  286,  287. 

Shields,  James.  Auditor  of  State, 
i,  217-218  ;  challenge  to  Lin 
coln,  and  duel.  234-237. 

Simpson,  Bishop  Matthew.  De 
livers  oration  at  Lincoln's  fu 
neral,  ii,  283. 

Sparrow,  Thomas  and  Betsy. 
Emigrate  from  Kentucky  to  In 
diana,  i,  1 8  ;  death  of,  24. 

Speed,  Joshua  F.  Meets  Lin 
coln  for  the  first  time,  i,  176  ; 
introduces  Lincoln  to  Mary 
Todd,  195  ;  account  of  the 
courtship,  198,  199  ;  letter  to 
Herndon.  204  ;  tribute  to  Lin 
coln,  ii,  231-238. 

Springfield.  Early  society  of,  i, 
173  ;  court  and  bar  of,  177  ; 
attitude  of  clergy  of,  toward 
Lincoln,  ii,  176,  177  ;  lawyers 
of,  and  Lincoln's  colleagues  at 
the  bar,  328. 

Stanton,  Edwin  M.  Meets  Lin 
coln,  ii,  22-25. 

Stephens,  Alexander  H.  What 
Lincoln  thought  of  him,  i, 
268. 

Stone,  Daniel.  Elected  to  Legis 
lature,  i,  163  ;  protests  with 
Lincoln  against  slavery  resolu 
tions,  169,  171. 

Stuart,  John  T.  Admits  Lincoln 
to  partnership,  i,  174 ;  state 
ment  of,  regarding  Lincoln's 
religion,  ii,  150,  151. 

Sweet,  Leonard.  Describes  Lin 
coln  in  the  argument  of  a  case, 
ii,  3  ,  interests  himself  in  the 
cause  of  David  Davis,  212- 
215  ;  describes  Lincoln,  238- 
248. 


348 


INDEX. 


Talisman^  The.  History  and 
disappearance  of,  i,  77-82. 

Thomas,  Jesse  B.  Speaks  in 
Springfield  church,  i,  183;  cari 
catured  by  Lincoln,  188,  189. 

Todd,  Mary.    See  Mary  Lincoln. 

Trumbull,  Lyman.  Elected  U.  S. 
Senator,  ii,  46  ;  aids  in  Lincoln's 
aspirations  in  1858,  129,  131. 

Turnham,  David.  Accompanies 
young  Abe  Lincoln  to  mill,  i, 
21,  22  ;  loans  him  the  "  Re 
vised  Statutes  of  Indiana,"  42. 

Van  Buren,  Martin.  Meeting 
of,  with  Lincoln,  i,  248,  249. 

Weldon,  Lawrence.  Tribute  of, 
to  Lincoln,  ii,  334,  335. 


White,  Horace.  Recollects  Lin 
coln's  speech  at  Beardstown,  ii, 
86,  87  ;  accompanies  Lincoln 
during  the  debates  with  Doug 
las,  88. 

Whiteside,  John  D.  Shields's 
second  in  the  duel  with  Lin 
coln,  i,  229;  account  of  duel, 
229-233. 

Whitney,  Henry  C.  Describes 
Lincoln  on  the  circuit,  ii,  18, 
20  ;  accompanies  Lincoln  on  a 
speech-making  tour,  81  ;  con 
ception  of  the  rebellion,  253- 
256. 

Wilson,  Henry.  Reminiscences 
of  Lincoln,  ii,  184,  185. 

Wilson,  Robert  L.  Recalls  bat 
tle  of  Bull  Run,  ii,  251-253. 


(11) 


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